


Fear The Reaper A Lot, Actually

by anistarrose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Lovers, Found Family, M/M, a few canon ships that don't get enough focus for the relationships tag, approximately the angst/humor mixture present in canon, gratuitous princess bride references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24279616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anistarrose/pseuds/anistarrose
Summary: In the aftermath of the catastrophe at the Miller Lab, Kravitz strikes a deal with his bounties. Their crimes against death will be forgiven if they can bring in two specific liches for arrest…But unfortunately, those liches are named Lup and Barry J. Bluejeans.
Relationships: Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz, Kravitz & Angus McDonald, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 136
Kudos: 150





	1. The Deal

**Author's Note:**

> I posted the second of three scenes in this chapter on Tumblr in January, not really expecting to continue it at the time, but it was well-received there, and I realized that I actually have a lot more ideas for this AU than I expected! This fic has been in the works for months, and I’m simultaneously so excited, nervous, and relieved to get it out of my mind and into the world.
> 
> That said, there is one other person who’s read this fic before, and that’s Fexiled! They’ve been an awesome (and patient) beta reader, and I’m incredibly grateful to them for all their advice, typo-catching, and encouragement!

Kravitz couldn’t even begin to fathom what kind of sinister agenda would possibly bring a _lich_ to a train station, but he’d intercepted Barry J. Bluejeans in stranger places than Rockport. If he was after any other bounty, he’d be worried about the nearby masses of civilians on holiday getting caught in the crossfire, or worse, being used as hostages — but with Barry, he never knew _what_ to worry about.

Barry, for his part, didn’t seem fazed by the prospect of facing down the Grim Reaper in a transportation hub staffed entirely by identical clones of Tom Bodett, and he addressed Kravitz calmly and amiably:

“Ah, there you are. Hope you didn’t have a ticket for the Rockport Limited, ‘cause it left a couple minutes ago.”

“I have a magical sapphire scythe that lets me teleport anywhere on the Material or Astral Planes,” Kravitz replied. “Why would I need train tickets?”

Barry chuckled — nervously? Awkwardly? Without a visible face beneath his hood, he was difficult to read. “I dunno, leisure? In case I got on a train and you wanted to follow me, but legally?”

Kravitz narrowed his eyes. Barry was normally talkative for a lich, but today, he seemed especially affable… not to mention unsurprised by Kravitz’s appearance. “Were you _expecting_ me to follow you here?”

“You’ve followed me stranger places,” Barry reminded him. “Graveyards for dragons, necromancy conventions, the _actual_ moon that _isn’t_ just a secret society’s headquarters… point is, I kinda figured the ticket counter at a train station wouldn’t stop you.”

Kravitz adjusted his grip on his scythe, channelling a spark of the Raven Queen’s power to scan the area for magical traps. There were none.

“I don’t have any tricks this time,” Barry promised him, his hooded void of a face still frustratingly impossible to read. “No sabotage, no moon ogres. I just want to talk.”

A pigeon landed on the ground between them, pecking at a dropped sandwich without any acknowledgement of the two undead entities that could each obliterate it in a second.

“Let’s say I humor you, in the interest of not catching an innocent bird in the crossfire,” Kravitz replied. “What would you want to talk about?”

“I’m realizing this isn’t gonna sound that sincere, but… an apology. And a warning.”

“What world do you come from, where it’s appropriate to follow an apology with a threat? Are you going to, I don’t know, _imprison my soul_ if I don’t forgive you?”

“The world I come from has nothing to do with it.” The lights beneath Barry’s hood flickered erratically, but he kept his composure. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for wasting so much of your time. You could be out there stopping _evil_ necromancers, but I’ve been leading you on a wild goose chase for a decade, and I’m genuinely sorry about that. I’m sorry that I can’t do the things I need to do or save the things I need to save without being undead, and making what I can only assume is a gigantic bureaucratic mess for the Astral Plane.”

Kravitz sighed. “Are you hinting that I should just give up forever on chasing you, because you’re not evil? Do you really expect me to believe that, coming from a _lich_?”

“Well, I wasn’t counting on it, but that _would_ be nice,” Barry admitted. “The thing is, whether you believe me isn’t going to matter a whole lot in… let’s see, at the rate we’re going, I doubt it’ll take much more than a year. You’re gonna have a bigger problem on your hands — and if you want even a slim chance of surviving it, you and your goddess and every plane in this system will need to be _prepared_.”

Kravitz eyed a clock on the station wall. “Keep making threats like that, and you’ll have thirty seconds to explain yourself before I end this conversation.”

Barry held up his hands. “Wait, wait, let me clarify — that wasn’t me threatening you! That’s me knowing what’s coming, and not wanting to see it obliterate this entire universe! I — I see, now, how that could get misinterpreted — but I promise, I’m not making this up just to mess with you! You have the ability to warn the Astral Plane, to warn the Raven Queen and by extension _all_ the gods in the Celestial Plane, so that they can _prepare_ for this and stand a fighting chance —”

“Excuse me, gentlemen? Is there anything I can help you with?”

A Tom Bodett approached them, completely unfazed by the lich and the reaper staring each other down on the Rockport Limited boarding platform, and Kravitz couldn’t help but wonder how frequently the humble employees of the train station had to deal with the undead making a scene.

“Stay back, mortal!” he shouted, twirling his scythe and jumping between the Barry and the poor, almost certainly underpaid Tom. “This is an arrest of one of the most dangerous death criminals in Faerun —”

But Barry had already vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the faintest wisp of red smoke, and Kravitz held back a curse.

This _always_ happened one way or another, every damn time Kravitz had encountered Barry in the past decade. Barry had been right about one thing — he’d wasted an _astronomical_ amount of Kravitz’s time over the years.

“Well, I guess that takes care of that,” Tom declared brightly, as if he caused distractions that allowed ultrapowerful death criminals to escape justice every day. “He was making quite a scene — any idea what his deal was?”

Kravitz shook his head. “Just a lich playing mind games. As liches are wont to do, you know.” 

_At least, I hope that’s all Barry is,_ he thought with a shiver. _But if he wants to give me a reason to believe him, then… well, he can do it from a cell in the Eternal Stockade._

***

“Hey, Reaper Man! I’ve got an idea for you!” Taako called out. Something about the gleam in his eye piqued Kravitz’s curiosity, even though hearing out ideas from death criminals was an objectively unwise idea. 

“Do tell, then,” Kravitz replied, and the mischievous smile on Taako’s face expanded into a toothy grin.

“You hunt down a lot of different bounties, right? And Lucas and Maureen and Noelle, they can’t possibly be the _worst_ criminals on your naughty list, can they?”

“Naughty list? What is he, Santa?” Magnus snickered. “I guess it is technically still Candlenights…”

“Today has been a _Day_ with a capital D,” Kravitz warned Taako, “and I’m _not_ in the mood to hear an argument about why I should let them go because morality is relative —”

“Cool your collarbones, Skeletor, I may have come here to get the Philosopher’s Stone, but I’m no _philosopher_. I was just thinking: what if _we_ tracked down one of your bigger bounties _for_ you? You let some harmless death criminals go, we bring you a _really_ evil one in return, you collect a big old bounty and also get to see my charming face again! Doesn’t that deal sound like a winner?”

“In practice, it just sounds like a good way to get double-crossed — but in theory, it would be quite a bargain, I’ll grant you that.” Kravitz mentally ran through his list of bounties, almost immediately focusing on one particular lich that had vexed him for years. “And I have to admit, I’d love nothing more than seeing you three take a crack at bringing in Barry J. Bluejeans —”

The second Barry’s name was uttered, Taako let out a wheezy laugh like a congested elephant, and Magnus and Merle weren’t far behind, guffawing so heartily that they fogged up the insides of their null suit helmets.

“I laughed at that name once just like you, but when _you’ve_ been hunting him for years to no avail, it won’t seem so funny anymore!” Kravitz warned them. “He’s easily in the top five most dangerous liches in Faerun, not to mention the _number one_ most elusive!”

“Barry’s a LICH?!” Magnus chortled, as Merle doubled over clutching his stomach and Taako rolled around on the floor in hysterics.

“All that time in Phandalin, we were at the mercy of an evil undead overlord and we didn’t even know it!” Taako cackled, evidently not too troubled by the revelation. “Fuck, we’re lucky to even be alive!”

That caught Kravitz off guard. “Wait, you’ve _met_ Barry Bluejeans?”

“And lived to tell the tale!” Merle boasted. “We could _totally_ do it again, by the way!”

“Hang on, Merle,” Noelle interrupted. “Was this what you meant earlier? When you said you were friends with a couple of liches?”

Merle blinked. “When did I say that?”

“Never mind.” Noelle sighed, then turned to Kravitz. “There’s gotta be some mistake. Some kinda identity confusion. The Bluejeans I met in Phandalin, he — he was a good man. He tried to keep us hidden while he fought off that awful dwarf, that dwarf that was setting everything on fire as far as the eye could see. Mister Bluejeans was so reassuring, and so brave — if anything, I’d call him a hero, not some horrible undead monster.”

“That doesn’t really sound like our Barry,” Merle said. “He was kind of an ass. Told me to stab myself with a rusty fork.”

As his bounties squabbled among themselves over the true nature of Barry Bluejeans, Kravitz took the opportunity to pray to the Raven Queen.

_Your Majesty, if these criminals think they can really track down such a dangerous lich… would taking their offer be the right choice? Or am I about to be scammed?_

The reply was immediate, as if the Raven Queen had already been observing the Miller Lab intently and contemplating the situation for herself. _I cannot make this decision for you, Kravitz. But I trust your judgement._

 _Thank you, milady._ Kravitz collected himself, and announced his terms.

“I’ll tell you what. One lich isn’t quite enough to sell me on this deal… but _two_ liches would be, _especially_ if the latter of the two hasn’t been detected in over a decade. If you bring me the both of them in the next two months, everyone involved in this whole Miller debacle goes free — but if you fail, I come to collect _all_ your souls. You still up for this deal?”

Magnus looked like he wants to ask for clarification, but before he could get a word out, Taako casually declared:

“Sure, dude, we’re up for it. Who’s the second lich, other than Barry?”

“Her name is Lup, and she was last sensed in the general vicinity of Wave Echo Cave ten years ago,” Kravitz replied with a smile. “That’s all I know about her, so that’s all the information you get, too. Good luck!”

***

“You’ve got two _months_ to capture a couple of _liches_? And if you don’t, the _Grim Reaper_ will take your souls?!”

“Shh, not so loud!” Magnus hissed, pressing a finger to Angus’s mouth. “Do you want everyone on the moon to hear?”

Angus glanced around the cafeteria. Exempting him and the three Reclaimers, it was completely empty aside from a few discarded, tattered Candlenights decorations. “Have you at least told the Director about this?”

Magnus smiled sheepishly. “Uh, it never seemed like the right time to bring it up.”

“Carey knew because she was there, but she didn’t seem too keen on being the one to break the news,” Taako elaborated. “Can’t say I blame her.”

Angus sighed. “And your new robot friend, Noelle. Is her soul a part of this bargain, too?”

Magnus nodded. “Yeah. We promised her we’d take care of it, so she’s hanging with the Regulators now —”

“And I bet Lucas Miller isn’t even dead after all, is he?”

“Perceptive as ever, Agnes,” Taako confirmed. “Maureen really did die, though. She went back to the Astral Plane.”

Angus took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, a gesture that made him look far older than ten. “No offense, sirs, but why didn’t just gamble with the Grim Reaper for your souls like normal people? You might’ve actually had a _chance_ at succeeding, that way!”

“Huh,” muttered Magnus. “Good question…”

“Yeah, _Taako_ , why _didn’t_ we just gamble for our souls like normal people?” Merle echoed.

Taako shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I just thought that Kravitz guy sounded pretty okay, like he’d give us a reasonable bargain…”

“Reasonable? He made Magnus chop my damn arm off!”

“Arguing isn't going to get us anywhere, sirs,” Angus spoke up. He hoped he was putting on a calm facade, even though his feet were trembling in his shoes. “Did Kravitz tell you _anything_ about these liches? Names? Locations of recent sightings?”

“Already jotted down all the details for you, my little man,” Taako answered, handing Angus a single sheet of paper. “Didn’t want to forget anything that would help you work your boy detective magic.”

“As if you could ever forget Barry Bluejeans!” Magnus scoffed.

“A lich named Barry Bluejeans? That _can’t_ be right…” Angus took a look at the sheet, titled “Case File” in loopy cursive letters and broken up into two subsections:

_**Lich #1** _

**_Name:_ ** _Barry Bluejeans_

_**Last seen:** The circular glass mistake formerly known as Phandalin, a couple months ago_

_**Weaknesses:** Gerblins (unless that was a cunning play so we’d let our guard down), pants that aren’t made of denim, the temptation to party and drink while other people do his job for him_

_**Other information:** Used to be Gundren’s bodyguard, and didn’t do a very good job — but who could blame him? That dwarf was an even bigger asshole than he was._

_**Lich #2** _

**_Name:_ ** _Lup_

_**Last seen:** Wave Echo Cave, 10 years ago _

_**Weaknesses:** I don’t know, probably holy water or something_

_**Other information:** Zilch_

Each section was accompanied by an illustration. Barry’s was a cartoonish drawing of a skeleton with jeans, glasses, and a mullet, while Lup’s was simply a series of question marks. At the bottom of the page, Taako had written: _Now have at it, Caleb Cleveland Junior!_

“…You really have a lot of faith in me, don’t you, sirs?” Angus asked quietly.

Taako shrugged awkwardly, as Magnus replied:

“Well, we know you’re way better at this than _us_. And you know that’s not exactly a high bar to clear, but you’re obviously our best shot.”

Angus took a deep breath. “Do you remember the reaper’s exact terms? Were there any loopholes we could exploit?”

“ _Were_ there?” Magnus mused, tugging at one of his sideburns. “Does anyone remember what he said?”

“Why are you looking at me?” Merle asked, prompting a laugh from Taako.

“Well, in that case…” Angus took a deep breath. “I guess I’ll interview Carey and Noelle to make sure we’re not missing anything, but we shouldn’t count on being able to cheat the deal. Do you think we could book a transport sphere down to Wave Echo Cave tomorrow morning, to go search for leads?”

“Should be no problem,” Taako told him. “Back to our old stomping grounds! I can hardly wait!”

“Reliving our old mistakes! Hooray!” Merle cheered sarcastically, and with that, the Reclaimers all sauntered back to their dorms with easygoing attitudes that Angus could hardly believe.

 _How are you all so cavalier about dying?_ he thought. _How can you bear to joke about this situation?_

 _And what will_ I _do, if I can’t help you find these liches?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate people commenting on/sharing/[reblogging](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/618592738793996288/fear-the-reaper-a-lot-actually-taz-balance-au) this fic, especially for this first chapter! There's absolutely no obligation to do so, of course, but it would mean a lot!
> 
> For what might be the first time in my life, I already have a surplus of chapters written, so the update schedule should remain consistent for at least a month or two (fingers crossed). Since this chapter was on the shorter side and included a scene I posted months ago, I think I’ll post Chapter 2 in a week, then switch to updating every other week from Chapter 3 onwards. (Probably still on Tuesday evenings, plus or minus 24 hours.)
> 
> Also, I’d just like to give a shoutout to Angus McDonald for always, always ending up with a bigger role in my fics than I expect when I start writing! But I’m glad he managed to sneak his way into this one, because there’s a bunch more Angus scenes coming up that I can’t imagine this fic without :)


	2. Lost in the Moss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus tries to cope with the pressure. Taako does some sick stunts. Barry is exposed as a cryptid of the necromancy community.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title chapter title: Wave Echo Cave 2, Necromantic Boogaloo

“Where are you all going?” Lucretia asked, just as Taako opened the door to the glass sphere the next morning.

“Oh, me? I’m off to give lil’ Ango McDango here some magic lessons!” he fibbed. “Figured Wave Echo Cave would be a nice low-level experience for him to learn the ropes — unless there’s any other murder gloves still down there that we should know about?”

“No — at least not to my knowledge, but…” Lucretia narrowed her eyes. “Why are Magnus and Merle going with you?”

“They also need magic lessons.” 

Lucretia frowned. “Merle’s already an accomplished cleric…”

“Yeah, _ostensibly_ ,” Taako replied. “But have you ever actually seen him heal?”

“Hey!” Merle shouted from inside the sphere. “I banished a whole bunch of ghosts yesterday, and that’s a cleric thing, isn’t it?”

He frowned. “ _Is_ it a cleric thing? I could’ve _sworn_ Pan helped me…”

“It’s absolutely a cleric thing, sir,” Angus assured him, and Merle sighed with relief.

Lucretia shook her head. “Alright, point taken. Just be sure to keep an eye out for the Red Robes — I don’t want anything happening to you all, especially not now when we’re getting so _close_ to collecting all the Relics…”

“It’s okay, Director, you can admit that you’ve grown fond of our dumb shenanigans!” Magnus chimed in from his seat next to Merle.

As Taako climbed into the sphere and Avi aims the cannon, Lucretia smiled sadly. “Yes, that too…”

***

“Was this cave so… for lack of a better phrase, _squelchy_ when you came here last, sirs?” Angus asked as Magnus led the way through the tunnel, axe gleaming from a Light spell just like old times.

“Oh, it was plenty squelchy,” Magnus replied with a grimace. “Squelched all the way to the elevator.”

“It was really more of a splort than a squelch last time,” Merle said. “Still not pleasant, though.”

“I know how to lighten up this squelchy mood!” Taako spoke up. He was holding the Umbra Staff over his head, deflecting the drops of water and occasional fist sized blops of slime that fell from the stalactite-dotted ceiling. “Agnes, prestidigitate up some sparks. I wanna see what arcane skills of your own you’ve got before I start teaching you that Taako-brand magic.”

Angus blinked. “But I thought the magic lessons were… a clever ruse. A cover story.”

“Yeah, but the ruse will get a whole lot clever _er_ if you actually have some new spells to show for it, you know? Unless you _really_ don’t wanna to learn for some reason —”

“No! I mean, yes! I mean —” Angus took a breath. “I would very much like to learn magic from you, sir. Even if it is just to help you lie to your boss.”

“Are you really gonna teach Merle healing, too?” Magnus asked, shrugging off the gentle elbowing he received from Merle.

“Do I look like _I_ know how to heal? I can brew up a nice soothing tea to help a sore throat and that’s about it! Merle’s Healing Words are between him and the big satyr in the sky.” Taako turned to Angus. “Don’t be shy! Show me what you can do, and even if you mess up, I’ll make sure these goobers only bully you really mildly.”

Angus took a deep breath and closed his eyes, imagining sparks flying from his fingers. _Grandpa always said that you’d make a good wizard one day. Time to prove him right,_ and _to prove to Taako that I’ll be worth teaching even after he’s done lying to the Director…_

“Whoa!” he heard Magnus gasp, and he opened his eyes. Tiny yellow stars burst in and out of existence in small clouds around his hands, fading as his concentration was broken.

“Hey, that’s pretty good for a first attempt! Wanna be our new cleric?” Taako asked him, earning a grumpy look from Merle. “I’m just kidding. But seriously, have you ever done this before?”

“Not at all, sir. Was it really that good for a first try?”

“Kid, you’re a natural!” Taako reached over and patted Angus’s cap. “Forget the cleric jokes — when I get my soul reaped, I know who the Bureau’s gonna hire as the replacement wizard!”

The proud smile vanished from Angus’s face as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by wide eyes and a quivering lip.

“What’s wrong, Ango?” Magnus asked. “Taako’s just joking — you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I definitely don’t plan on dying and leaving you in my place,” Taako added. “Taako is irreplaceable!”

“I know you’re joking, sir,” Angus told him. “But what I can’t understand is _how_ you can joke about something like that…”

Taako kneeled down next to Angus, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Why, it’s ‘cause I’ve got the world’s greatest detective on my side, of course! I know we’ll find those liches and survive with our souls unreaped, because there’s no one better for the job than you are! So don’t look so glum — the four of us have got nothing to worry about.”

The sentiment was sincere, Angus could tell, which was a rare thing coming from Taako — but it had the opposite of the intended effect, and Angus’s stomach churned. 

“You’re p-putting an awful lot of faith into me, s-sir —” he stammered, but he was interrupted as Magnus clapped hands over both Angus and Taako’s mouths.

“Shh!” he hushed them. “Did you hear that?”

“Sounded squelchy, just like everything else in the whole damn cave,” Merle whispered back. “Not at all like undead bones rattling.”

“But maybe squelchy like flesh being reanimated!” Magnus exclaimed in a hushed voice. “Ugh, Taako, did you just lick my hand?”

“I stuck out my tongue on reflex, ‘cause what you just said was gross as hell!” Taako replied, as Magnus wiped off the palm of his hand on a patch of moss growing up the wall of the cave. “Please don’t use any onomatopeia in a sentence with the world ‘flesh’ ever again!”

Angus cupped a a hand around his ear. “Sirs, I’m definitely hearing some non-squelchy voices from down the corridor. Is that also normal for this cave?”

“Must be someone in the main chamber,” Merle said. “Maybe it’s the ghosts of my dead cousins, or —”

He froze. “Hey, Maggie? I’d step away from that moss before —”

Magnus jumped back just in time to doge a gelatinous green arm that burst out of the moss-covered wall, swiping furiously at him. A shoulder and then an entire torso oozed out after it, followed by a head sporting a familiar pointed hat and elfin ears.

“Watch where you wipe my spit next time!” Taako shouted, pointing the Umbra Staff at his slimy doppelganger. 

“Then don’t slobber on my hand next time!” Magnus yelled back, drawing Railsplitter. 

“Just kill it already to make sure there _is_ a next time for us!” Merle exclaimed. “Kill it with fire!”

Taako fired off a barrage of Scorching Rays, but the moss monster’s arm elongated into a gelatinous Umbra Staff of its own. A putrid-smelling bubble of acid grew from the end of it, and when Taako’s bolts of fire struck it with a hiss, it burst to release a cloud of acrid purple fumes that quickly filled the hallway.

Coughing and cowering behind Magnus, Merle extended his soulwood arm towards the slime construct as he cast Detect Magic. “That’s no moss! It’s got necromantic energy coming out of all its sporophytes!”

“Spor-o-phytes, is that a horny thing? That sounds like a horny thing,” Magnus grunted, fanning the air in front of him. “Not in front of the kid, Merle!”

“Forget about what you should or shouldn’t say in front of me!” Angus yelled, voice muffled as he held his cap over his nose and mouth. “Let’s just get out of here!”

“Got it!” Magnus stashed Railsplitter away, and scooped up Angus in one arm and Merle in the other as he sprinted down the hallway. 

Taako followed in hot pursuit, summoning a wind to blast the fumes back in the opposite direction. His doppelganger faltered for a moment in the force of the gust, as drops of slime blew off its body and splattered across the walls, but as the wind subsided, it slowly oozed back together and began to follow the boys, gliding across the floor on a thin layer of liquid.

Magnus burst into the cave’s main chamber and jumped onto the elevator, setting Merle and Angus down as he began to crank the pulley. Merle extended a hand to Taako, who scampered aboard at the last minute before it began to descend.

“Phew,” he muttered, wiping a few drops of slime off his brow. “That was a close one!”

“Uh, sirs? I’m not sure we’re out of the woods yet.” Angus pointed towards the pool at the center of the cave, on top of which a massive pile of soft green moss was growing. Standing around it were three hooded figures, watching the adventurers intently. “We’ve got company.”

“You do indeed!” the tallest of the figures called out. “I _thought_ I heard several someones bickering in the halls!”

“Unlike _Chad_ , who insisted it was just the normal ambient sounds of the cave!” the second-tallest figure added.

The final and shortest figure, presumably Chad, crossed his arms and neglected to respond.

“You guys are necromancers, right?” Magnus asked as the elevator reached the bottom floor. “You ever meet a lich named Barry Bluejeans?”

“A lich?” Chad skeptically tilted his head, which was barely even perceptible beneath the folds of his robe. “The only Barry Bluejeans I know wasn’t a lich — he cheated me out of a whole stack of eldritch tomes in a dice game, and then told me after he’d won that he didn’t even know how to do necromancy! I did an Insight check and everything, and he wasn’t lying!”

“Your Insight bonus stinks, Chad!” the medium-height figure snapped. “The only time I ran into Barry Bluejeans, I got blackout drunk with him at a dark magic convention and when I woke up, he was gone and the Grim Reaper was there arresting the rest of us! Obviously, I got away despite my hangover, but Barry sure wasn’t any help!”

“Okay, that one actually checks out for Barry,” said Taako. “Agnes, jot that down.”

“I, too, have unfortunately crossed paths with this Barry Bluejeans,” the tallest necromancer spoke up. “I had just called forth my army of man-eating cactus homunculi to raze a nearby village, but then Barry foolishly threw himself in their path! The ridiculous amount of denim he was wearing didn’t save him, but he bought the townsfolk enough time to escape before he died, and now I’m banned from every desert in Faerun!”

“Dying unceremoniously also sounds like Barry,” said Merle. “Jot that down too.”

Angus clicked his pen. “This is all very strange, isn’t it? We have confirmation that Barry has died multiple times and returned to life at least once, but between the killed by cacti story and the kidnapped by gerblins story, he doesn’t seem nearly as cunning or powerful as you said Kravitz made him out to be. Why would —”

At the mention of Kravitz’s name, the necromancers all hissed in disgust.

“You four are with the Raven Queen?” Chad gasped. “I thought you just wanted to join our cool fun slime necromancy club!” 

Angus held his hands in the air. “Wait, that’s not what I meant! We’re not hunting you, we’re —”

“Feign interest in our dark ways no longer, then!” the tallest figure bellowed, ignoring him. “Slime clone, attack!”

Taako’s doppelganger executed a perfect cannonball dive from above, and Magnus scooped Angus up and out of the way just in the nick of time. The slime monster splattered into a flat puddle on the ground, but quickly began to reform, lunging towards the real Taako and wielding a fake Umbra Staff.

“Actually, Angus, I’m making an executive decision!” Taako declared as he dodged a splash of acid. “These guys suck ass so we _are_ hunting them now, whether Kravitz wants us to or not!”

“The guys by the pond are the ones controlling that thing! Let’s take ‘em out!” Magnus set down Angus next to Taako, then drew Railsplitter with one hand and picked up Merle with the other. “Merle, I need your radiant damage!”

“I guess I just don’t get a choice in the matter, huh?” Merle wailed, frantically flipping through his Extreme Teen Bible as Magnus rushed in.

“Sirs, wait!” Angus yelled. “Look out for —”

Magnus began to skid to a halt — but not before Chad extended an arm, and a tendril of moss shot out of the pool, yanking Magnus’s legs out from under him. Merle’s Guiding Bolt went wide, and he tumbled off Magnus’s shoulder, landing directly on his ass.

“…the moss,” Angus sighed, as the tallest figure directed another tendril of moss to ensnare Merle before he could get to his feet.

The slime monster took a jab at Taako and he instinctively raised his Umbra Staff to block it, only for the umbrella to be engulfed and ripped out of Taako’s hand.

“Oh, fuck off! _No one_ messes with my umbrella —”

From within the gelatinous shape that was looking less and less like Taako by the second, the Umbra Staff opened all on its own and glowed red as it fired off a Thunderwave, blasting the slime monster apart from the inside out and plastering green ooze onto nearly every wall of the cave within a thirty-foot radius.

“What the hell?” Taako caught the umbrella as it sailed back into his hand. “Uh, I mean, that was all me! I meant to do that!”

As its red glow faded, the Umbra Staff closed and gently bonked him on the head as if to sarcastically say _Yeah, right._

“Now that’s just unsportly!” the tallest necromancer groaned. He reached into the pool and pulling out an ancient-looking stone staff, covered in vines and humming with energy. “Have you no moral reservations about destroying your own clone?”

“Nah, not really. I’d rather cut off any potential emotionally confusing relationships before they start, you know? That’s how I got to be me, Taako from TV, instead of some schmuck loitering in a cave and tripping over the hem of my own robe!”

“You talk a lot of smack for someone outnumbered and out-necromanced!” Chad growled. “Disintegrate him already, Dave!”

The tall necromancer twirled the staff, firing a vortex of sickly-green lightning at Taako — but Taako was ready, and unfurled his Umbra Staff as he summoned a whirlwind around him. It blew the scent of ozone and rotting wood back into the necromancers’ faces as it lifted Taako into the air like a twirling firework, carrying him up past the elevator and towards the giant stalactite in the center of the cavern.

Without even looking behind him, he plunged a hand into the damp stone at his back, transmuting on instinct and shaping the stalactite to provide him with handholds and footholds. Grinning at the stunned necromancers below him, he pointed his Umbra Staff straight down, and readied another spell.

“Actually, I think you’ll find I talk just the right amount of smack for someone with gravity on my side!” he crowed. “At Amazing Flip Wizard School, we learn to take every advantage we can get!”

As Taako summoned a freezing and highly distracting Sleet Storm, Angus took the opportunity to sneak around the pool, approaching Magnus and Merle from behind the necromancers’ backs. Merle was bound firmly in place with his back to the pool’s raised stone rim, while Magnus lay prone on the ground, flopping in place like a beached whale trapped in a mossy fishing net.

“Sirs?” Angus whispered “I’m not sure I’ll be able to just Prestidigitate you out of there…”

“Can you reach Railsplitter?” Magnus whispered back, awkwardly wriggling in place as he tried and failed to shed the tendrils binding his wrists. “I’m not sure where I dropped it…”

“Oh! I see it!” As the necromancers squabbled over who should be the one to wield their staff and fire back at Taako, Angus darted back towards the elevator —

“Look out!” Merle barked, just before a muscular green arm burst out from a mossy patch of ground at Magnus’s feet, stretching the full ten-meter distance to Railsplitter and swiping it right out from under Angus’s nose. The blade missed him by a hair’s width as the arm retracted backwards, returning to normal size as a full Magnus torso formed beneath it.

“Shit,” Magnus muttered.

At the edge of the pool, where the tendrils of moss that bound Merle touched the water, two ripples formed and from them two translucent dwarf-shaped figures emerged, stepping down onto the cave floor and following in the slimy footsteps of the Magnus clone as it approached Angus. It still wielded a very real Railsplitter in its gelatinous arms.

Angus turned around, ready to bolt for the elevator, but two new Taako clones emerged from the entry tunnel and stood atop the elevator’s upper platform, even in height with the real Taako’s stalactite perch. They drew their umbrellas in sync, one pointing at Taako and the other at Angus.

“Shit,” Merle agreed.

“Not so confident anymore, are you, wizard?” Dave boasted. “Your friends are at our mercy, now — and soon enough, you will be too!”

Even from close to a hundred feet below, Angus could see Taako tense up as he processed the situation… but then, he looked directly at Angus, and nodded solemnly.

“Actually, at Taako’s Amazing School of Flip Wizardry, this is just what we call a final exam!” he shouted, and vanished into thin air.

For exactly the next two-and-a-half seconds, both the necromancers and the slime constructs were too stunned to even react — and then all hell broke loose, as the earsplitting whine of a Shatter spell echoed through the cave and the stalactite exploded.

The second the falling rubble hit the pool, a disproportionately massive deluge of water cascaded across the chamber, instantly obliterating several newly formed Merle clones and knocking the necromancers off their feet. Just before the wave reached Angus, Taako blinked back into existence behind him, grabbing him by the wrist and lifting the two of them into the air with his umbrella.

“Stay up here while I finish the job, okay?” he told Angus, setting him down on the only dry ledge remaining in the cave. Without making eye contact, he smiled as he quietly added: “Don’t want anything to happen to you, ya know?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll —” Out of the corner of his eye, Angus spotted a pillar of decaying brown vines rising from the pile of rubble in the middle of the room. Along for the ride was one of the necromancers, his hands surrounded by crackling dark clouds. “Taako, look out!”

“Fuck!” Taako jumped in front of Angus, reopening his umbrella and bracing himself for the attack — but before the necromancer could unleash the spell, a sapphire-blue bolt of energy tore through the blighted vines suspending him, instantly vaporizing them as he plummeted to the ground and landed with a sickening crunch.

Then the sapphire aura solidified into a long, curved blade of translucent crystal, through which Angus could see tiny soul-lights dancing as the waves of the Astral Sea lapped against an island’s shore. Taako, for his part, was more preoccupied with the figure that manifested to hold the scythe — first appearing as a skeleton, then materializing a long raven-feather cloak, and at last transforming into a handsome dark brown skinned man who scanned the situation below with eyes that had clearly seen their fair share of shit, but never anything quite _this_ improbable.

“Well, these certainly aren’t the death criminals I _assigned_ you to capture,” Kravitz said, “but I believe it’s still in both of our best interests to see them killed, so… I take it you’re interested in my help?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between Barry Bluejeans, Jenkins, Lucas Miller, Lydia, and Edward, I like the idea that almost every single necromancer in the extended TAZ Balance universe has a comedically mundane name to contrast with their profession. Hence, Dave and Chad!
> 
> Starting with the next update, I’m going to attempt to post new chapters every other week from now on. (I’m working on Chapter 6 right now, so that should give you a rough estimate of how long that schedule will stay consistent.)
> 
> Same as last update, this fic can also be found on [tumblr!](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/619221715459932160/fear-the-reaper-a-lot-actually-chapter-2) Comments are welcomed — I'd especially love to hear any theories or predictions you might have!


	3. You Seem a Decent Fellow, I Hate to Reap You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle continues! Kravitz arrives to help. Taako chills out. Angus remains skeptical.

The cloaked necromancers Chad and Dave stood beside their fallen comrade, seething with rage. Green tendrils of electricity flew off their staff, materializing into twisting vines that pulverized almost every stone surface in a twenty-foot radius.

Behind them, Magnus coughed up water and struggled into a sitting position. He was still loosely bound by moss, but managed to swat the attacking vines away from Merle, who was looking even worse for wear on account of residing almost directly beneath the epicenter of Taako’s stalactite-shattering stunt. 

“Don’t worry,” Merle mumbled, fumbling with a waterlogged Extreme Teen Bible. “I know how to deal with plants —”

His holy symbol began to glow, only for that radiant light to fade almost immediately as Merle’s head slumped. “Never mind, I think I’m concussed.” 

From his position on the ledge between Angus and Kravitz, Taako watched with increasing concern.

“I really fucking didn’t think through the collateral damage of that move, did I?” he muttered. “Hey, Kravitz? If you’ve developed _any_ grudging respect for me at all over the forty-eight hours we’ve been playing this game of cat and mouse, then can you do me a solid and get those two out of danger?”

Kravitz eyed the pile of rubble in the center of the cave, where the pool had once been. “Technically, I’ve been hunting you for more like twelve years. But I think I can figure something out.”

Before Taako could even react to the first statement, Kravitz turned into a ball of light and zipped down to the ground floor. Dave took a swing at him with the staff, but Kravitz was too fast, dodging green lighting bolts and disappearing into the shattered remnants of the stalactite. 

There was an anticlimactic pause, then a low rumble, and a stone humanoid construct began to assemble itself as rubble from across the cave flew together to form four massive arms and fists. A few of the surviving slime constructs charged him, but Kravitz effortlessly flicked boulders through their heads with his lower pair of arms, then scooped up Magnus and Merle with his upper pair. 

“What are you even _doing_ with that staff? Either stop him, or hand it over to me!” Chad wrestled the staff out of Dave’s hands and pointed it at the base of the construct’s torso, summoning more vines and wiry tree roots that bored into the stone. But before they could bind or shatter any vital foundations, Taako took his cue to rejoin the fight, dropping a Fireball on the necromancers from directly above before casually floating down to their level, Umbra Staff still wreathed in flames.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Kravitz scanned the cave for ledges out of the way of danger, but Angus still occupied the only safe spot he could see. Instead, he drew upon his link to the Astral Plane and concentrated — and as the cracks in the construct’s form began to glow blue, several sapphire crystals burst out of the wall of the cave to form an elevated platform. He set Magnus and Merle down atop it, then brushed the last scraps of moss off their bodies with surprisingly dextrous stone fingers.

“Unhand me, you undead — oh, never mind, that’s actually really helpful,” Magnus told him. “But do you think you could get me my axe back?”

The construct’s head turned, as a movement on the ground floor caught Kravitz’s attention. Scattered pieces of moss were slowly creeping back together, reabsorbing diluted puddles of slime and writhing as they formed new undead constructs.

“Maybe later,” Kravitz answered, voice echoing across the cave. “Right now, I’ve got other priorities.”

From his bird’s-eye-view, Angus noticed the reforming slimes at the same time Kravitz did. “Taako, behind you!”

Taako had been handling the two surviving necromancers with ease, but he barely reacted in time to dodge a spray of acid from one of their newly formed minions. This one was taller and more deformed than any of the others, and its three arms wielded gelatinous copies of the Extreme Teen Bible, Railsplitter, and the Umbra Staff. Its face was perpetually bubbling and reforming, sprouting Magnus’s sideburns before replacing them with Merle’s beard, then Taako’s hat.

“Ugh!” Taako spat, recoiling. “I know you’re necromancers, but I didn’t sign up for this horror movie shit!”

“Try freezing it, sir!” Angus yelled, cupping both hands around his mouth. “Your Sleet Storm took out a lot of the vines last time!”

Taako fired off a simple Ray of Frost, catching the slime abomination in the shoulder and freezing its whole body solid in just a fraction of a second. Its face solidified somewhere between Merle’s and Taako’s, locked in a shouting expression — but thankfully, Taako didn’t have to stare at his fused likeliness for much longer, as Kravitz’s construct detached and launched one of its fists with a burst of blue astral fire, pulverizing the frozen construct into a thousand clouded ice crystals.

“Nice shot!” Taako called out. “But _fuck_ , I wish we’d realized their weakness sooner!”

“Damn you, and damn your reaper friend a thousand times!” Dave bellowed. “But you haven’t won yet! Fuck ‘em up, Chad!”

Chad slammed the tip of the staff against the ground, and a dozen more vines arose to bind the stone behemoth. Kravitz let it crumble, turning back into a ball of light and zipping over to Taako’s side, where he rematerialized as a humanoid skeleton who gripped his scythe as three new, equally deformed slime clones rose and advanced towards them.

“If you freeze those three, I bet I can shatter them all in one attack,” Kravitz boasted, grinning at Taako.

“Create another sapphire at about torso height in the wall on our left, and I bet _I_ can _freeze_ ‘em all with just one ray!” Taako raised him.

“You’re on!” Kravitz plunged his scythe into the ground, and a sapphire crystal burst out from a wall of dull gray limestone. Nodding approvingly, Taako fired off another Ray of Frost, which ricocheted off the reflective blue surface at the perfect angle and flew in a straight line through all the clones, leaving each of them frozen. 

Kravitz twirled his scythe and it morphed into a elegant black longbow, three sapphire-tipped arrows already nocked and blazing with ghostly flames. He turned his bow sideways as he fired, and each arrow pierced one frozen enemy, shattering them into three identical piles of icy shards.

“Ohoho! Nice one!” Taako laughed, applauding enthusiastically. “Look out for those clowns with the staff, though!”

Chad screamed and charged at Kravitz, wielding the intensely magical staff like a melee weapon — but Kravitz simply plucked the string of his bow, and upon hearing the tone, Chad dropped the staff and slammed his hands over his ears. In one lightning-fast motion that literally crackled with electricity, Kravitz reverted his bow to its scythe form and swung at Chad, who was vaporized the second the blade pierced his skin. A mottled brown cloak fell to the ground, sliced in half but no longer occupied by anything but dust. 

“Could you do me a favor and freeze the rest of that moss, Taako?” Kravitz called out. “I’ll wrap up this battle on my own, if you don’t mind.”

“Go for it!” Taako told him, conjuring a floating bag of popcorn.

Kravitz vaulted into the air, tearing a rift through the fabric of the Material Plane with a twirl of his scythe. He vanished and reappeared behind Dave’s back, but Dave was ready for him, pulling out a longsword as he whirled around and parried Kravitz’s attack.

“Ah, you’re one of _those_ people,” Kravitz commented, looking about as unperturbed as a skeleton could. “Got into necromancy later in life after the fighter class didn’t work out for you, eh?”

Dave managed to deflect Kravitz’s next flurry of strikes, but found himself losing ground as Kravitz backed him towards the wall below Magnus and Merle’s perch.

“Though it looks like you’re a little out of practice,” Kravitz went on. “Don’t worry — I’m sure you’ll find some new sparring partners in the Eternal Stockade.”

Gasping for breath and only a few more steps away from being cornered, Dave threw back his hood to reveal a rugged half-elven face, and managed a dazzling smile.

“You don’t have anywhere left to retreat,” Kravitz remarked amusedly. “Why the optimism?”

“Because I know something you don’t, reaper!”

“Which is?”

Dave tossed his cutlass from his left hand to his right. “I am not left handed!”

Kravitz laughed so hard that his appearance flickered between living and skeletal, even sprouting raven feathers in his hair for a brief moment. “Really? That’s all?”

Dave’s expression crumpled. “What do you mean?”

With each hand, Kravitz pulled his scythe in opposite directions, and it morphed into two new scythes, each blade as sharp and deadly as the original. “I thought you were going to say you had two swords!”

Shoveling popcorn into his face with one hand, Taako pointed his Umbra Staff behind him and blasted a reforming moss monster without even looking at it. “You tell ‘em, Krav!”

Dave tried to feint to the right then flee to the left, but Kravitz transformed into a dual-wielding whirlwind, twirling blades into a vortex that could’ve torn through solid stone. But every one of his movements was too precise, too carefully honed, to possibly strike an unintended target like a wall or misplaced boulder — one moment, Dave’s longsword was flying out of his hand, and the next, Dave himself was no more, vaporized into a cloud of dust that quickly dispersed and a bright soul-light that was banished directly to the Eternal Stockade.

A wand carved from gnarled wood fell to the ground, and as usual, the Umbra Staff inverted to slurp it up. For just a moment afterwards, Taako could’ve sworn that it tugged his hand ever so subtly upwards and pointed at Kravitz — but the second Kravitz turned around, the tugging stopped, and the residual magic aura surrounding the umbrella faded. 

“Well, I suppose we should do something about that necromantic staff.” Kravitz transformed back into a human and walked over to the offending magical artifact, manifesting a black leather glove around his hand as he picked it up. “It’s not quite Grand Relic-tier dangerous, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe to leave lying around, either.”

He tore a new rift with his scythe and tossed the staff through. “And just when I was making headway on all that Miller paperwork…”

“Hey, if you need help, I bet you could outsource some of it to Angus!” Taako suggested. “You’re not kidnapping him to whatever weird afterlife cubicle you work from, though. He’s _my_ student.”

“Angus is the child?” Kravitz glanced up to the ledge Angus still stood on, who was watching the events below with a mix of fascination and horror that could only come from a kid detective in over his head. “What were you _thinking_ , bringing him here? He could’ve been hurt if I hadn’t arrived when I did!”

“Well, in my defense, I didn’t _expect_ to have any potentially traumatizing battles with slime monsters,” Taako retorted. “It’s not my fault my life never has a dull moment!”

Kravitz sighed. “Neither does your undeath, apparently.”

“That’s just the way things go for celebrities. Nothing I can do about it!” Taako flipped his hair, then made a mental note to cut it now that it was getting long enough to flip. He didn’t want it turning into a mullet. 

“I could name plenty of celebrities whose deaths have been relatively law-abiding, actually,” Kravitz told him, expression deadpan. “I’d say about eighty percent of them total, or maybe seventy-five.”

“I can only imagine the Astral Plane tabloids,” Taako chuckled, tossing his Umbra Staff into the air. “But anyway, let’s get you down from there, Agnes.”

The opened Umbra Staff flew into Angus’s hand, and with only slight hesitation, Angus leapt of the ledge. The handle was warm, but not hot, and something about that gentle heat just felt reassuring.

As Angus safely floated to the ground, enveloped in silver light, Kravitz made a sweeping downwards gesture with his scythe, and the sapphire crystals supporting Magnus and Merle began to rumble and slowly descend.

“Is it Angus or Agnes?” Kravitz asked the boy detective. “I think I must’ve misheard you at least once.”

“Well, it’s definitely not Agnes,” Angus replied. “Are _you_ really the Grim Reaper?”

Kravitz chuckled. “I’ve had this job for almost eight centuries, and I don’t think _anyone’s_ ever asked me that before. Usually the scythe’s convincing enough.”

Angus crossed his arms. “A little skepticism is always healthy, no matter how obvious the conclusion may seem. Caleb Cleveland taught me that, just like he taught me a lot of things.”

“Can’t say I’m familiar with Caleb Cleveland, but that sounds fair enough,” Kravitz cheerfully conceded. “Though maybe you should exercise a little more of that caution the next time Taako and his friends drag you along on a dangerous mission. Speaking of which, let me fix you all up.”

As Magnus and Merle reached the ground level of the cave, Kravitz’s scythe shimmered and morphed into a lute. Intricate carvings of various corvids covered almost every inch of the ebony wood, with tiny sapphires inlaid for their eyes. Magnus looked over the handiwork approvingly as Kravitz plucked out a simple melody, and an aura of rosy pink healing magic washed across the room.

Merle rubbed his forehead. “Huh, my headache just melted away…”

Taako laughed. “Yeah, that’s what healing magic usually tends to do for concussed people!”

“Has this been our problem the whole time?” Magnus added. “Has Merle just not been able to comprehend the concept of healing?”

“Did the concept of healing get erased by the Voidfish?” Taako wheezed.

“I can comprehend it just fine, assholes!” Merle retorted. “I’m just not used to seeing it as a _performance_!”

Kravitz returned his lute to scythe form. “Playing four chords and healing you wasn’t a performance. But Taako and I destroying those three undead? _That_ was a performance.”

Taako beamed. “Hey, speaking of which — is there any chance killing three horrible slimy boys is equivalent to taking out one lich in the bounty system? Because I think I rocked it today, not to mention the two of us really vibing, and it would be cool if you could cut me just a _little_ bit of slack.”

“I’m afraid none of today’s harvest had actually died and escaped the Astral Plane before, which means they still rank far below both the three of you, as well as your actual targets,” Kravitz replied. “But I could probably pull a few strings and make sure your cells in the Eternal Stockade are all next to each other, if it makes you feel compensated.”

“Does that include Lucas Miller?” Magnus asked. “I _really_ don’t want to be stuck in a cell next to Lucas for eternity.”

Kravitz shrugged.

“Noelle and Maureen can hang, though,” Magnus clarified. “They’re cool.”

Taako ignored Magnus, walking over to Kravitz’s sapphire platform to examine it. Even after knocking on it and prodding it with his Umbra Staff, it remained solid. “I might end up regretting this question, but your sick crystal stunt reminded me and now I gotta know — if you’re _this_ good with your scythe, then why didn’t you just take a physical form in Lucas’s lab and kill us that way instead of fucking around as a crystal construct?”

“No matter how powerful I am with it, there was always a chance of my scythe touching a crystal and being transmuted into pink tourmaline, which would’ve rendered most of its powers unusable,” Kravitz explained. “So I decided to go in incorporeally — which I may or may not regret, I haven’t decided yet.”

Taako nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think I would’ve cast that tentacle spell on, like, a dude. Not that I’m know whether you’re thinking of that as a positive or a negative —”

“You know, there’s something I really should’ve given you last time!” Kravitz deflected, transforming back into a skeleton and hoping his flustered expression would be harder to read on a skull than on a face with eyes and skin and flesh. “You need a way of summoning me!”

“You mean saying your name three times doesn’t work?” Merle asked.

“Unless I’m already scanning for undead in the general area, no.” Kravitz reached into his robe and pulled out a quiver of arrows, which he handed to Taako. “These are tipped with sapphires and fletched with raven feathers. Stabbing one into a surface of your choice while saying my name _just once_ will release a powerful magical flare and get my attention, and I’ll warp over as soon as I can.”

Grinning, Taako slung the quiver over his shoulder. “Dude, that’s metal as fuck!”

“But please save them for genuine necromantic emergencies — either when you get a lead on one of the liches, or if another dangerous situation like the one today comes up.”

Taako’s grin faded. “So… they’re for business only.”

“I… uh… I’m sorry,” Kravitz stammered, immediately regretting the stipulation. _But I can’t change my mind_ now _, there’d be no way to explain it without just sounding awkward…_

“It’s a company policy,” he fibbed. “Not my choice, unfortunately.”

Taako seemed to buy it, though he still looked disappointed. “Oh, well. Woulda been nice to hang with you, but I guess I’ll — _we’ll_ see you later, then.”

“Good luck, Taako,” Kravitz said. “Good luck to all of you — and I mean that much more sincerely than I meant it last time.”

He tore open a portal to the Astral Plane and leapt through it with a dramatic swing of his cloak — but not before seeing Angus stick his tongue out at him, stubborn and defiant in that uniquely ten-year-old way.

Returning to his office overlooking the Astral Sea, Kravitz sighed, and addressed the raven perched on the back of his swivel chair.

“You know, I don’t think Taako’s student likes me very much.”

“Caw,” replied the raven, which almost certainly translated as either _I smell popcorn_ or _oh Kravitz, what in the world have you gotten yourself into?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **tired:** giving your crush your Stone of Farspeech number  
>  **wired:** giving your crush a quiver of arrows imbued with the power of your patron goddess so that he can summon you (but only for necromantic emergencies)
> 
> comments/[reblogs](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/620487326495375360/fear-the-reaper-a-lot-actually-chapter-3) are welcomed as always!


	4. Red and Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unlikely friendship springs from a book club, while secrecy becomes more important than ever for Tres Horny Boys. Kravitz receives a summons. Angus does a hit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't let the Lunar Interlude-esque setting confuse you — this update's a long boi! If you can't already tell how much I love Angus McDonald, then the next few thousand words should make it pretty clear.

Some days, Kravitz found paperwork relaxing. Today was not such a day.

The Raven Queen was almost always receptive to his suggestions about how to restructure the forms, and happy to do what she could to minimize the bureaucracy and tedium inherent to almost any other office job. But today, Kravitz’s unbeating heart just wasn’t in his work — just like yesterday, after he’d returned from Wave Echo Cave.

So it was simultaneously a relief and a surprise when a blue glow flashed in his peripheral vision, and he felt the telltale tug of a summons from the Material Plane, specifically…

“The moon?” he muttered out loud. “What is _with_ these people and ridiculous floating secret bases?”

The pull of the summoning spell was designedly weak, and easy for Kravitz to shrug off if needed — but he wasn’t going to pass up an excuse to get out of the office, and try to part ways with Taako on a better note this time. Maybe he could ask around, find out if anyone knew what Lucas and Noelle were up to… 

In a cozy bedroom on the moon, a hissing plume of smoke emanated from a sapphire arrowhead, embedded in the soil of a potted plant. As the smoke solidified, Kravitz’s human form took shape, and instinctively scanned his new surroundings for dangers or necromantic abominations.

Two floor-two-ceiling bookshelves were stuffed with novels and encyclopedias, and glow-in-the-dark stars covered the ceiling. The bed was neatly made, but was so small it couldn’t have accommodated anyone larger than a gnome, or a halfling… or a human child.

“Hello again, Mister Grim Reaper,” said Angus. He sat on a tiny wooden chair, pen in hand and notebook open to a fresh page. “I’ve got a number of questions for you.”

Kravitz plucked the arrow from the potted plant, and the electric blue glow of the sapphire faded. “Does Taako know you have this?”

“Nope. But if he did, he’d probably endorse me breaking the spirit of the law, if not the letter — after all, you never said that _only_ Taako could summon you this way.”

Kravitz holds up his hands. “I didn’t mean to sound accusatory. I was just… expecting to meet with Taako today, so this surprised me. But I’d be happy to answer your questions — provided they don’t take more than an hour or so.”

Angus narrowed his eyes. “Will you answer me honestly?”

Seeing no reason to lie to even the most precocious of ten-year-olds, Kravitz declared: “I swear to answer truthfully upon my oath to the Raven Queen.”

“Then tell me — why are you so _nice_?”

“Pardon?”

Angus glared at him. “You know exactly what I mean — why are you so _helpful_? You tried to reap my friends’ souls, and told them they that could only save themselves by accomplishing an _impossible_ task! But then, you — you saved them yesterday, and even _healed_ them! What are you _playing_ at?!”

Immensely grateful that he’d set the terms on his own honesty oath, Kravitz told the truth with a few details omitted. “I helped them because they seemed like nicer people than most of the bounties I hunt — and in that strange sort of ‘begrudging respect’ way, I guess I’m growing fond of them.” _Taako even moreso than the others._

“If you were _really_ fond of them, you wouldn’t be trying to kill them in the first place,” Angus muttered, lowering his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Kravitz told him, and that too was the truth. “It’s just what my job demands —”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have gotten into this line of business!” Angus screamed, wiping tears from his eyes. “In two months, I’m gonna lose three of the closest people I have to family, and it’ll all be because I’m just a kid detective who can’t track down a couple of liches — but it’ll also be because of _you_! I _hate_ you, and I hate everything you stand for!”

Angus’s fist sunk harmlessly into Kravitz’s raven-feather cloak, but he staggered backwards like he’d punched a brick wall, falling to his knees and taking off his glasses to sob — but against his better judgement, Kravitz kneeled down at Angus’s side. 

“Don’t count out Taako and the others just yet,” he whispered. “I’ve seen them do _miraculous_ things — escaping from me in the laboratory, for one thing, and banishing Legion, for another. If they can defeat thousands of unruly undead souls in combat like that, then they might just be worthy opponents for even the most crafty and powerful of liches.”

“You’re sure they’ll be okay?” Angus sniffed.

“No,” Kravitz admitted. “I’m not sure. I wish I could be, because I really don’t want to send them to the Astral Plane. But they’ve got help — not just your smarts, but my scythe as well, because I don’t intend to just stand idly by without giving them a fighting chance. I… truthfully, Angus, when I offered them the deal, I wanted to bring an end to the headache they’d given me by any means necessary. But they’ve earned my respect since then, and though the deal can’t be undone, there’s no rule stopping me from aiding them. I don’t want to reap their souls if there’s _any_ way I can avoid it, _any_ excuse or loophole.”

Angus rubbed his nose. “Do you — do you _normally_ like reaping people’s souls?”

Kravitz took a moment to think about his answer. “I was a human like you, once. Alive, and precocious, and always getting in over my head. When I died, and began working to protect the living world as an emissary of the Raven Queen, I felt like I had discovered my life’s purpose, even though it ironically required becoming undead as a prerequisite. My duty is to keep the balance of the universe — to _save_ lives by stopping liches, necromancers, and their foul servants from upsetting that balance — but I remember what it felt like to be mortal, to have mortal loved ones. So… I don’t enjoy watching people grieve, because it feels all too familiar.”

He sat down, and crossed his legs. “I don’t tell a lot of people about this, but in a way, if I’d come to terms with death and grieved more quietly when I was alive… well, let’s just say I probably wouldn’t be a reaper today.”

Angus managed a smile. “You know, you’re _nothing_ like the Grim Reaper in the _Caleb Cleveland, Kid Cop_ books.”

“Oh? I know there are… a variety of misconceptions about me floating around in the world, but I haven’t read that series. Are they detective stories?”

“They’re the world’s _greatest_ detective stories,” Angus declared, “and I own every installment!” For the first time since his ill-fated attempt to punch Kravitz, he stood up, and selected a book from his bookshelf. “This is the first one that you — well, not really you — show up in.”

Kravitz took a look at the cover illustration, which featured a child in a deerstalker hat standing back to back with a deathly pale man, dressed in tattered gray robes and wielding an iron scythe. The title read _Caleb Cleveland and the Mask of Death_.

“Not much of a resemblance, is there?” Kravitz mused. “I guess can’t fault them for the iron scythe, because that’s what everyone seems to expect, but iron and celestial magic don’t always get along — better than iron and fae magic for sure, but still not especially well.”

“His personality isn’t a whole lot like yours either, sir,” Angus sheepishly admitted. “This is the start of the five-book Grim Reaper arc, which starts off with the reaper helping Caleb solve murder mysteries until Caleb’s previously-struggling private detective agency — which he started after his schism with the corrupt police establishment in the last book — is renowned throughout the country. But then Caleb realizes that the reaper is just trying to bring about an era of prosperity and increased population density, so that he can kill the maximum number of people possible while poisoning the water supply! And of course Caleb disavows his partnership with Death, but the reaper spends the next four installments of the arc committing more murders as revenge — which initially felt like a little bit of a motivation downgrade, if I’m being honest, but it also led to some great continuity between books as well as some really well-written horror that unsettles without pulling on cheap shock value! So they turned out to be some of my favorite books in the series, and… I’m sorry if I judged you a little hastily because of them. You’re a whole lot nicer than the Grim Reaper I expected.”

“You don’t have to apologize. You’re hardly the first person to misjudge me for my line of work, and I don’t expect you to be the last.” Kravitz flipped through the book, which was full of underlined words and fan theories neatly written in the margins. “Actually, do you mind if I borrow this? I’ve always loved mystery novels.”

“You really want to read it?” Angus’s eyes lit up. “Uh, well, I should probably start by giving you the first book in the series, otherwise a lot of callbacks to previous adventures won’t make sense. But I guess I did kind of just spoil the whole plot of Books 21 through —”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kravitz assured him with a smile. “And I think I will take Book 1 to start out, please.”

“Alrighty, then!” Angus selected a well-worn book from his shelf and handed it to Kravitz. “Could you, um… let me know what you think of it when you finish reading?”

“I absolutely can. Oh, and Angus?”

“Yes?”

“You sound like a marvelous detective. If _anyone_ can crack the case of these liches, I believe it’ll be you — but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t, alright? That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone, and you’re a growing kid — you need your rest.”

Angus nodded. “I’ll try to remember that, sir.”

***

Angus gave directions to the three Reclaimers’ shared dorm, but didn’t specify which individual room was Taako’s, so on a hunch, Kravitz knocked on the door of the room that smelled the most like baked goods. Sure enough, he heard Taako shout “It’s unlocked!” over the banging of bowls and cookie sheets.

“You need to look after your arrows better,” Kravitz warned him as he entered. “If someone with more malicious intentions than Angus were to steal one, then they could easily lure me into a trap.”

Taako blinked. “Whoa, what happened to your accent? I thought you were a stranger and almost chucked a bowl of gingersnap dough at your head!”

Kravitz narrowed his eyes. “Did you really? You look like you’ve got a pretty firm grip on it, there.”

“No, you called my bluff. I’m too good of a chef to just go chucking perfectly good food whenever someone spooks me — the point is, what is _up_ with your voice, my dude?”

“It’s, um… a work accent,” Kravitz explained. “My normal voice isn’t that intimidating. As you can tell, heh.”

“Still wouldn’t want you to slice me up with a scythe, though. You gotta give yourself more credit.” Taako rolled a small handful of gingersnap dough into a ball, dusting it with sugar and placing it in the corner of a fresh cookie sheet. “And to answer your complaint earlier, Angus wasn’t as slick as he thought he was when he swiped that arrow, but I let him get away with it ‘cause I knew neither of you two dorks would try to fight each other or anything like that.”

“He actually did want to fight me for a minute or two,” Kravitz replied, “but we worked it out and now we’re apparently… book club buddies? I’m not sure, I’m no good with kids — or maybe I’m better with kids than I’m consciously aware of?”

Taako snorted. “I didn’t endear myself to little Ango at first either, but now I guess I’m his hero, and his teacher, and maybe even his emotionally adopted uncle or something? There’s just something magical about that kid.”

“Absolutely, but… he seemed stressed.” Kravitz sighed, and Taako’s expression softened. “I suppose this is partly my fault, but there’s an awful lot of pressure on him.”

“Yeah, he — he doesn’t find it so funny when me an’ the boys joke about death, I’ve been noticing. I’ll make sure he takes some time off the case to relax — you think that would help him?”

“I think that would be a good place to start.” Kravitz nodded, glancing over the sheets of oatmeal cookies cooling on the adjacent counter. “You look like you’ve been keeping busy yourself.”

“Yeah, the Director was so thrilled with my Candlenights macarons that she requested a couple batches of oatmeal-white chocolate and some gingersnaps. Guess she read my cookbook or something — ‘cause my whole cookie portfolio is choice, don’t get me wrong, but those are a couple of my top-tier baked goods after the macarons.”

“They smell heavenly — and I should know, working in the Astral Plane! Do you mind if I try one?” 

“Wait!” Taako pushed Kravitz’s hand away from the tray. “I didn’t check them for — hang on, you’re already dead, right? You know what, go for it. Sorry about that.” Under his breath, he added: “It’ll be fine. Perfectly fine.”

Confused and a little concerned, but too polite to decline Taako’s offer, Kravitz took a bite of an oatmeal cookie. It was still slightly warm, and the white chocolate melted in his mouth, but he couldn’t imagine it being any less of a delight after having cooled, either.

“So, how many of these does your boss actually want,” asked Kravitz, “and how many can I take back home? They’re just as good as they smell!”

“Course they are,” Taako snickered. “Gimme a few minutes here, and I’ll make you a little gift baggie.”

“Speaking of gifts, that reminds me —” From an inside pocket of his cloak, Kravitz procured four new summoning arrows. “I spoke with the Raven Queen, and was able to arrange an exception to that… company policy, the one about summoning me for business only.”

Taako didn’t look away from his cookie sheet, but his ears immediately perked up.

“You can use them outside of emergency situations — within reason, of course,” Kravitz continued. “I don’t want to manifest in the middle of, I don’t know, a heated debate about moon bylaws, or whatever it is that you people vote on up here.”

“Actually, it turns out moon society is kinda authoritarian.” Taako finished filling the first sheet with gingersnap dough, and began work on a second. “But be honest — how much of this was actually premediated on your part, and how much is just a spur of the moment decision now that you know I’ll give you free baked goods?”

“It was premediated, but make no mistake, the baked goods are a bonus,” Kravitz chuckled. He neglected to mention that there had been no company policy in the first place, nor had there been a conversation with the Raven Queen. Part of him just wanted to give Taako his Stone of Farspeech number like he had with Angus, and bid farewell to the archaic summoning rituals altogether, but it would still be handing over personal information to an active bounty, and there were some lines even Kravitz didn’t dare cross — at least, not _yet_. “But as good as it is to be able to keep in touch with you, there’s something I should probably warn you about sooner rather than later.”

“Fire away.”

“I assume you were looking for Lup in Wave Echo Cave the other day. But that didn’t unveil many clues to you, did it?”

“ _Unveil?_ No wonder you and Angus are starting a book club, you speak in the same detective mambo-jumbo. But you’re right, we found zilch.”

“Are you going to start looking for Barry Bluejeans next, by any chance?”

Taako made a funny expression. “Yeah, I guess that’s the plan. But, well, we also agreed that the plan should be to stay on the moon to rest and train for a couple days — ‘cause Magnus has been a bad influence, and we all rushed into the cave expedition just a day after we almost died averting the crystal apocalypse. You saw how that worked out for us.”

Kravitz nodded. “Today is the first day I’ve actually seen you without bags under your eyes. It suits you.” The last part slipped out without Kravitz thinking it through, but it prompted a wink from Taako, which Kravitz considered among the better possible outcomes of impromptu flirting.

“But getting back on topic,” he continued, “I wanted to warn you about Barry. I’ve encountered him a number of times, and he’s not exactly a _normal_ lich.”

Taako sat down on a stool and crossed his legs. “Well, you dunno what my reference point is for liches. He could be a totally regular, run-of-the-mill lich by my standards — maybe a little spooky, but nothin’ to write home about, you know?”

“Then you’d be consorting with some pretty strange liches, because Barry is a _very_ confusing one. Most liches are either antisocial or obsessed with grim monologues, but Barry has held a handful of coherent brief conversations with me — all of which started out weirdly normal, until he started rambling nonsense about the planar system with a genuinely unsettling amount of conviction.”

“Oh, those liches,” Taako muttered, nodding along. “Always saying the darndest things.”

“I feel like you’re not taking this as seriously as you could.” Kravitz narrowed his eyes. “To be fair, I’ve never _seen_ Barry hurt innocent mortals, which is another way he differs from essentially all other liches — but that doesn’t mean that he’s not a threat, especially if you’re hunting him down. After all, there’s a reason I’ve spoken to him several times, but never successfully captured him.”

Kravitz thought back to one of his first and most troubling encounters with Barry, about a year after the end of the Relic Wars. They’d crossed paths by accident, in a seaside town recently demolished by a serpent of the Oculus’s creation, and Barry had exploited the shambles of the port to his advantage, hurling fishing nets and tattered sails at Kravitz as he made his escape.

_“You can’t run from justice forever, Bluejeans!” Kravitz had shouted, slicing through a weighted net with his scythe. “Your kind all wind up in the Eternal Stockade eventually!”_

_“I’ve spent_ decades _bracing myself for the end of apparent eternity and the exhaustion of apparent infinity,” Barry had replied matter-of-factly. “If your prison could really stay intact until the end of time, then I’d be happy to hunker down there with everyone I love and wait for this storm to blow over.”_

_With a flick of a spectral hand, he’d flung a half-dozen crates of rotten fish at Kravitz’s head. “But you don’t see me handing my soul over without a fight, so… I guess that should tell you everything I think about your so-called ‘eternal’ stockade.”_

_Kravitz had easily dodged the crates, but stepped right into the epicenter of the geyser that erupted from beneath the dock a moment later, launching him into the air. By the time he’d flown back down to sea level, Barry had been long gone._

“You know, if he still seems pretty chill for a lich,” Taako mused, dragging Kravitz back to the present, “and he’s harmless except for when you try to capture him, then… why _are_ you still trying to capture him? Why not just let him do his thing?”

Kravitz sighed. “That’s a good question, and I’m honestly curious… why do _you_ think I haven’t given up on him?”

“Well… ‘cause liches are illegal, right? Is this a trick question?”

“That’s the answer I was expecting, and you’re not wrong — but that’s not the entire story, either,” Kravitz told him. “I _also_ don’t want to leave Barry to ‘do his thing,’ as you put it, because I don’t know what ‘his thing’ entails. I’ve heard him allude to needing something specific out of undeath, but I don’t know what that is — if it’s immortality, or power, or something else altogether. I don’t know if he’s just putting on a harmless facade while he waits for me to let my guard down.”

Taako nodded. “You think he’s planning something.”

“I _know_ he’s planning something. Most liches, they’re unpredictable because the combination of undeath and their hunger for power has eroded their sense of logic and driven them insane. And at first, I thought this was the one thing Barry had in common with them — with his nonsensical grim warnings, and haphazard pattern of popping up in the last places I expect — but over the past decade of hunting him, I’ve gradually realized he isn’t insane at all. He just bases his decisions off of information that no one else in the universe seems to possess, and constructs plans that no one else in the world understands. He’s unpredictable, but not _irrational_ — and coming from a spellcaster as powerful as he is, that honestly terrifies me.”

Taako whistled. “Guess we’ve really got our work cut out for us, then.”

“I’ll leave you with this: please, if you track Barry Bluejeans down but he seems civil, and reasonable, and harmless, you still cannot and should not trust him, no matter what he tells you. With liches, even abnormal ones, you can’t risk anything less than constant vigilance. Take it from someone who learned it the hard way centuries ago, and has been significantly better at his job ever since.”

“Aww, you’re worried about us,” Taako snickered as he placed the gingersnaps in the oven. “But I read you loud and clear — you don’t need to worry about _me_ falling for a lich’s tricks, of course, but I’ll remind the other two goofuses to be careful.”

He frowned, closing the oven door. “Although, now that I think about it… what does Barry even _look_ like as a lich? I don’t actually know what we should be searching for, but I’m assuming it’s not a normal-ass dude in jeans.”

“Oh, you can’t miss him. Most necromancers spring for black or gray robes, but his is bright red.”

Taako’s eyes went wide. “You know those grim warnings you mentioned him giving? Would they happen to be about, uh, the hunger of all living things?”

“You’ve met his _lich form_ , too?” Kravitz slapped his forehead. “Were you also the best man at his wedding? Do you golf with him on Saturdays?”

“Man,” Taako muttered, “I am _so_ glad we decided not to tell the Director about this.”

***

Angus found Noelle in the Bureau’s gym, dumping a cooler of water on her teammates as they finished an intense workout. On the other side of the room, Avi was thoroughly demolishing Brad Bradson at an impromptu game of half-court basketball, and a small but rowdy crowd had gathered to watch.

“Not gonna lie, I’d kill to be a tireless cyborg like you, Noelle,” Carey groaned, overdramatically collapsing into Killian’s arms. “I’m exhausted.”

“I dunno. If training didn’t make my arms ache, then I don’t think it would be half as satisfying,” Killian replied, wiping her brow. “Although some laser eyes to pair with my crossbow might be pretty kickass.”

“I’m enjoying the whole swappable body parts thing more than I thought I would,” Noelle said. “At first I was worried I’d accidentally fry a whole bunch of people with my arm cannon, but it turns out I can just take it off for non-violent occasions!”

“Hey, Angus!” Carey called out, waving to him. “Got any strong opinions about cyborgs and integrating technology into our bodies?”

“Um, I was actually just here to ask Noelle a few questions. Is this not a good time?”

Noelle shrugged. “Well, we just finished training for the day, so I don’t see why not.”

Angus beamed. “Great! But do you mind if we conduct the interview somewhere… a little quieter than this gym?”

Noelle raised an arm, shielding Angus from a stray basketball. “Sounds like a plan.”

Upon arriving in Noelle’s as-of-yet sparsely furnished dorm, Angus sat cross-legged on the floor and opened to a fresh page in his notebook. 

“So, Magnus told me that you had a run-in with Barry Bluejeans shortly before his death in Phandalin. I’d never want to force you to think back to traumatic memories, but if there are any details you recall about him off the top of your head, that could be vital to our investigation.”

“I appreciate the concern, but it’ll be alright,” Noelle assured him. “I’ve already been thinkin’ back to that encounter a lot, ever since I learned Barry was a lich — ‘cause he really, _really_ didn’t act like how I was always told liches would behave. See, he… he almost took a blast of fire to the chest while he was shepherding us into that stockroom, and even then, he told us to stay in there while _he_ risked his life trying to lead the dwarf away. He was so brave, and he even got that dwarf out of the bar… but still not far enough away, I guess.”

“Was he using any spells? Magically redirecting fire? Did he try to teleport you to safety?”

“No, no spells that I saw. He threw a chair across the room to distract the dwarf at one point, but that was with his own two arms and I imagine a whole lot of adrenaline, not any sorta spectral mage hands or whatever it is that wizards use.”

“Hmm.” Angus clicked his pen. “I hate to say it, but if he didn’t cast a single spell, then it sounds like he really wasn’t trying that hard to save the town…”

“No, that’s not it. I’m sure of it. He told us not to be afraid, but he was… he was scared. Did a real good job of hiding it, but he was shaking as he closed that door to that stockroom and went back into the bar to face the fire. I sincerely believe he was doin’ everything he could to save us from the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, and it just… wasn’t enough.”

“I wonder if Lich Barry has — or rather, _had_ a kinder but more incompetent twin brother,” Angus mused, jotting down the thought in his notes. “It would make more sense than — wait. What did you just say about the gauntlet?”

“That Barry tried to save us from it? I guess I didn’t know what it was called back then, not until after I died and I remembered the Relic Wars —”

“Exactly! Noelle, you’re a genius!” Angus sprung to his feet. “We need to go talk to Johann!”

Noelle floated after him as he raced out of the room and towards the nearest elevator. “About what? The Voidfish?”

“Right! Maybe Barry didn’t cast any spells when he was alive because he didn’t remember that he could!”

“So when he died, the memories would’ve all rushed back to him, and he could go back to his lich-y business!” Noelle finished. “But why would the Bureau have erased information about _Barry_ , of all people?”

“I don’t know,” Angus admitted as they stepped into the elevator and it began to descend. “Maybe he used to work with them, and went rogue? I’d ask the Director, but…”

“She’s not in on the lich-hunting secret, right. But you’ll probably have to tell her eventually, won’t you? Y’all can’t keep sneaking out forever.”

“Oh, I know. But the Reclaimers are going to be the ones to break the news to her, not me. They were the ones who lied about it in the first place, after all.” The elevator doors opened, and Angus sprinted out at full speed towards Johann’s office. “Johann, I have a question! Is there a way to check what people the Voidfish has erased?”

Johann gingerly set down his violin, and tapped his head. “You’re looking at it. I’ve been in charge of feeding info to the Voidfish basically since the Bureau got started, and lucky for you, I’ve got a pretty good memory for who and what gets erased from the rest of the world.”

He sighed. “I kinda… I feel like the least I can do is remember them when no one else will, you know? ‘Cause it’s what I hope someone will do for me when I’m gone, and… well, that got real depressing real fast. You probably don’t want to hear that, kid — so just tell me, who do you need to know about?”

“I realize now that I’m forming the question in my head that this might sound like a goof,” Angus admitted, “but have you ever erased information about someone named Barry Bluejeans?”

Johann laughed. “You’re right, that does sound like a goof! I can’t remember _hearing_ about him before, never mind erasing him — and I’d _definitely_ remember a name like that, trust me.”

“Oh.” Angus’s face fell. “I was so sure…”

Noelle drifted over to the Voidfish’s tank, watching the swirling galaxy patterns drift by. “Don’t give up, Angus. You might still be onto something — maybe the info could’ve gotten erased before Johann was in charge here, or maybe before the Bureau even found the Voidfish.”

Johann nodded. “Yeah, maybe. You want me to ask the Director about it?”

“No!” Angus and Noelle shouted in unison.

“Not yet,” Angus added hurriedly. “Maybe eventually. I’ll need to talk to Taako and the others about it first.”

“Okay, whatever,” Johann shrugged. “I don’t really understand what’s going on here, but you do you.”

As Noelle rode the elevator back to the roof with Angus, she asked: “So, what’s our next move?”

“I guess we should go tell the Reclaimers about the break in the case, or lack thereof. And maybe make an argument for coming clean to the Director, while we’re there.”

They made their way back to the Reclaimers’ dorm, but upon opening the door, every one of the room’s occupants jumped out of their seats in shock.

“Oh, it’s just you two,” Taako sighed, lowering his Umbra Staff. “Try and knock next time! I thought you were Lucretia coming to bust our secret meeting!”

The living room looked exactly how Angus would expect the site of an impromptu clandestine gathering to look, with dozens of papers scattered about and a corkboard lying on the coffee table. Red and blue strings connected dozens of thumbtacks, and the center of the board was occupied by a red crayon drawing of a disembodied robe. 

Merle chuckled, elbowing Magnus. “You know, if you’d really wanted to keep our meeting secret, then we woulda made sure our ‘security guard’ actually locked the goddamn door —”

“That’s not important right now,” Magnus interrupted, closing the door and motioning for Noelle and Angus to join the circle around the coffee table. “What’s important is that you two haven’t let anything slip to Lucretia since the last time we talked!”

“Um, we haven’t, but…” Angus frowned. “We were actually thinking it might be better to let her in on the secret. I have a lot of questions that only she can help us answer —”

“Then they’ll just have to go unhelped!” Taako declared, magically silencing Angus’s Stone of Farspeech. “If you tell her our lives depend on _arresting_ one of the _Red Robes_ , she’ll go ballistic!”

Angus blinked. “I think I’m missing a lot of context here, sir.”

“I think _I’m_ missing even more,” Noelle added.

Magnus pointed at the drawing of the Red Robe. “See this? This is Barry’s true form, according to Kravitz. And according to Lucretia, the Red Robes are all super duper evil, so she’s not too keen on us talking to them. Or interacting with them any more than we have to, really.”

“Well, what’s supposedly so evil about them?” Noelle asked. “Are they _all_ liches?”

“No! Well, actually, they might be,” Merle admitted. “I dunno the states of all their souls, but we _do_ know they made the Grand Relics!”

“What?” Noelle gasped.

“You know, like the Philosopher’s Stone?” Magnus added. “And the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet?”

“No, I know _what_ the Grand Relics are, but there’s _gotta_ be some mistake,” Noelle replied. “Barry was trying to _stop_ the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet from going off and incinerating the whole town — and even if he was amnesiac when I met him, I just can’t imagine him ever creating something like that. It just doesn’t make sense —”

“ _Nothing_ about Barry Bluejeans makes sense,” Angus agreed. “There must be _something_ we’re missing…”

“I’m sure there is, but one way or another, I’m pretty sure Barry _did_ help make the Relics,” Magnus told them. “He’s popped up near almost every one of them, except for the Oculus —”

“Yeah, remember when you sensed a lich in the Cosmoscope, Noelle?” Taako chimed in. “That was Barry. He rooted through Lucas’s trash and said some ominous shit about billions of lives getting devoured. Doesn’t that sound like a guy who could be the evil mastermind behind the Relic Wars?”

“Well, why don’t we just ask him?” Merle spoke up. “I mean, it’s not like we have any trouble finding the guy even when we’re _not_ looking for him, ha! — so next time we run into him, how about I cast Zone of Truth, and ask what he has to do with the Grand Relics?”

“That’s a great idea, sir!” Angus exclaimed, but his face fell after just a moment. “But if Barry usually just shows up around the Relics, and we have no idea where the last three are, then how will we know where to look for him? We don’t have the time to wait for another to surface randomly like the Philosopher’s Stone and Gaia Sash did.”

“Kid’s got a point, Merle,” Taako admitted, rubbing his chin. “But as long as we don’t have any other leads… I can think of at least once place it wouldn’t hurt to check, and maybe even grace with a séance!”

“Phandalin?” Noelle asked, and Taako nodded.

“Exactly! Sure, the last time we revisited an old stomping grounds didn’t go so well, but Phandalin’s just a flat circle where you can see danger coming from any direction. What could go wrong?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some miscellaneous headcanons about the stuff in Angus’s room: Magnus made the bookshelves and chair, Lucretia provided the bed and helped Angus attach the stars to the ceiling, and the books are almost all Angus’s own. It took a while to bring them all up to the moon, but Lucretia was happy to help, and she and Taako both gave Angus a few more novels to add to his collection.
> 
> Next chapter has some exciting stuff happening, including an appearance from a certain lich that the boys may or may not be hunting, so stay tuned! I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold the every-other-Tuesday update schedule after Chapter 5, because long story short:
> 
> 1\. I got a part-time job that doesn’t take up that much time, but does occupy the part of the day when I’m usually in the mood to write.  
> 2\. I had mild insomnia for like a solid 4 nights, which I have since recovered from but not before it threw a wrench in my writing process, so that burnt through a “buffer” pre-written chapter or two.
> 
> I’m by no means abandoning this fic, but if updates slow down to more of a monthly pace after Chapter 5, this is why! Just wanted to give you all a heads-up.
> 
> Comments/[reblogs](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/621758706095423488/fear-the-reaper-a-lot-actually-chapter-4) are welcomed as always!


	5. me and the boys at 2 am looking for jeans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s time for the hunt to resume. Noelle makes a promise, Kravitz conducts an interview, Taako plans a séance, and Barry makes a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! I was sick on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then on Thursday I decided to focus entirely on losing my mind over the new TAZ episode, so that means it’s time for a rare Friday chapter. Lots of stuff is happening in this chapter, so hopefully it was worth the wait!

Long past the curfew established by the Reclaimers’ training routine, at the hour of night when the moonbase’s artificial lights dimmed and the bonfires on the planet below faded away, four pairs of eyes watched Avi from the shadows. A murmur of excitement escaped from behind one of the glass spheres when he yawned and checked his watch, followed by a chorus of disappointed sighs when he slapped himself across the face and set back to work unloading a new supply shipment, but he didn’t seem to notice them over the muffled roar of high-altitude winds.

Finally, a passenger sphere floated back into the port and the Bureau’s three top Regulators disembarked, back from a planetside drill that had run long. From her perch on Killian’s shoulder, Carey leaned down to affectionately slap Avi on the back, and he quickly accepted her invitation to join their gang for drinks at the Chug ‘N Squeeze. As Avi led the way out of the port, Carey and Killian hot on his heels while Noelle followed more distantly, there was much hushed rejoicing among their shadowy, impatient observers.

“Finally,” Taako huffed. “I was starting to think he was pulling an all-nighter.”

After checking one last time to make sure the coast was clear, Angus stepped out of his hiding place and reached for the door of the transport sphere, but Magnus grabbed ahold of him by the collar of his shirt.

“Sorry, little guy, but you’re staying behind this time.”

Angus opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again, at a loss for words for the first time since he’d started speaking in complete sentences at age fourteen months.

“It’s nothing personal, Agnes — we just need someone to stay behind and distract Avi if he comes back before we do,” Taako explained. “And no one can resist all your nosy questions once you get going, so you’re the perfect accomplice!”

“I can think of a few people who can resist it,” Merle scoffed. “Number one, me.”

Magnus ignored them both, kneeling down to look at Angus in the eyes. “Ango, if I’m being honest… we had some close calls last time, and that was in a cave where we honestly weren’t expecting to find anything besides a clue or two if we were lucky. Tonight, we’re going to try and get a _lich’s_ attention, so this morning, we all sat down and talked about it and agreed we’ll feel better if you’re safe up here.”

Taako sighed. “Gee, way to let the kid know we actually care about him. Now his ego’s gonna grow until it’s bigger than mine, and then where will I be?”

“It’s okay, sir. I’m sure you and Merle will still find ways to keep me humble.” Angus managed a smile. 

“Stay safe, all right?”

“That’s the spirit!” Merle laughed, as Magnus picked him up and placed him inside the sphere. “Now hurry up and set the trajectory, Taako. Barry Bluejeans isn’t gonna arrest himself —”

“Please, hang on just a second!”

Four heads whirled around to face the port’s exit hallway, where Noelle was floating.

“It’s just me, don’t worry!” she assured them, noticing Magnus and Angus’s guilty expressions and Merle and Taako’s panicked ones. “I won’t let the Director hear a peep of this, I promise — but if you’re going after Mr. Bluejeans, I’d like to come with you. If you’ve got room in that sphere, of course.”

“Well, the scale of this lich hunting team is rapidly veering past ‘secret club’ and careening into ‘elaborate conspiracy,’ but… I guess this whole bargain is about your life too, isn’t it?” Magnus thought out loud. “Taako, Merle, are you guys alright with this?”

“A ghost would know where to find another ghost better than any of us would, right?” Merle asked, and Taako shrugged.

“Then welcome to the lich-hunting conspiracy, Noelle,” Magnus declared.

On her way to the sphere, Noelle patted Angus on the head, surprisingly gentle despite her heavy robot arms. “Sorry, pal. I didn’t mean to replace you.”

“It’s okay, ma’am,” Angus told her. “I know you’re better in fights than I am, so… just be sure to keep them safe, okay? And if you get a chance, could you ask Barry if our theory about the Voidfish was right?”

Noelle’s face display flickered, somehow expressing a determined smile with just a few dozen lit-up pixels. “I’ll do my best, I promise.”

***

There were many reasons for a soul not to join the others in the Astral Sea, but most often, it was because they were waiting for someone. Luckily, the person Kravitz wished to speak with was one such soul, so he was able to find her in only a matter of minutes. 

There was only one island in the Astral Sea with a cottage on it, after all.

Though expertly constructed, it was clearly unfinished, lacking a door, roof, or windows — so Kravitz knocked on the cedar doorframe, and waited outside for the house’s occupant to respond. Just seconds later, a tall woman with a bandana tied around her hair met him at the doorway, smiling sadly and shaking her head as she laid eyes on Kravitz.

“Oh. You’re the emissary of the Raven Queen. I’m sorry, I — I wasn’t sure if I was hoping or fearing that you were someone else.”

“I understand.” Kravitz said softly. “You’re Julia Waxmen-Burnsides, right?”

“That’s right.” Julia offered him a calloused hand. “Nice to meet — er, _formally_ meet you, Death.”

“Death is my mother. Call me Kravitz,” Kravitz replied as he accepted the handshake, and Julia chuckled.

“Okay, Kravitz. What brings you over to my humble island?”

***

“Well, this spot should be as good as any,” Taako announced, kicking a pebble across the black glass circle that once was Phandalin. “Magnus, did you bring the sacrificial denim?”

“Sure did!” Magnus held up a pair of freshly purchased jeans. “Also some candles, and an ouija board that Carey helped me steal from Leon the other day as part my rogue lessons.”

“Tell Carey that gaslighting Leon is my job, and she needs to quit infringing on my brand.” Taako pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket, tried and failed to draw a circle on the glass, then conjured a paintbrush instead and started painting a pentagram.

Meanwhile, Noelle drifted around haphazardly, the lights on her face growing dim. “It’s… it’s so _empty_ here. I was bracing myself for ruins, for bodies… but there’s just nothin’ left. I can’t even remember where the bar was, or the hotel, or the stables…”

Merle looked away. “Sorry we dropped the ball on this one, Noelle…”

“S’alright. You made up for it in the lab last week, with the savin’ the world and negotiating for my soul an’ all.”

“Well, don’t get too comfortable in your robot body, ‘cause we might not have much time left in the living world if Barry doesn’t show tonight.” Taako placed the jeans in the center of the pentagram, then lit them on fire. “But I think this’ll get his attention. Everyone, come join hands!”

Magnus kneeled and took Taako and Noelle’s hands, while Merle stood up on his tiptoes to do the same.

“You’ve done this before, right?” Merle whispered.

“Plenty of times.” Taako summoned a Mage Hand and adjusted his scarf to cover his nose and mouth, as the fire in the center of their circle intensified. “Noelle? Would you do the honor of reaching out for us?”

“Uh, I’ve never been to a séance quite like this one. Maybe you’d be the better one to —”

“Barry, you asshole! Too much of a coward to show your face!” Merle shouted. “Heard about how I banished Legion and got the heebie-jeebies, didja?”

The ruins of Phandalin fell eerily silent, aside from the quiet crackling of the fire. 

“Sorry. Still not detecting any liches,” Noelle reported.

“Well, being a dick didn’t work,” Merle muttered. “Shoulda brought some booze and thrown a party — maybe that would get his lazy ass’s attention.”

“I’m pretty sure liches can’t drink, Merle,” Noelle told him. “And honestly, now that I’m thinkin’ about it, I can’t imagine why Barry would be obligated to haunt this here town just ‘cause it’s where he died. Are y’all _sure_ this is the best place to look for him?”

“Positive,” said Taako, but Magnus spoke over him.

“Maybe we _should_ widen our search area. Quick, what other places would be significant to Barry?”

“How ‘bout the cave where he got his ass kicked?” Merle suggested. “You know, the place where we met G’larg or whatever his name was.”

Magnus let go of Taako and Noelle’s hands to fan the air in front of him. “Well, a hike sure sounds better than standing around inhaling denim fumes, I’ll give you that.”

Taako extinguished the blaze then cast Phantom Steed, and Garyl manifested atop the embers of the fire, rearing into a majestic pose. “Hiking’s for chumps. Garyl and I will race you there!”

***

Julia led Kravitz inside the cottage, which smelled pleasantly of cedar and lavender, and motioned for him to sit down in one of two rocking chairs. She sat in the other, crossing her legs and absentmindedly rocking back and forth.

“So, Maggie went and got on the Raven Queen’s bad side, did he?”

“Not permanently, I’m hoping,” Kravitz replied. “I don’t know him as well as you, but he and his fellow death criminal associates don’t strike me as anything like the usual bounties I hunt. I was hoping you could testify on his moral character, and maybe also shed some light on _how_ he cheated death, because _he_ sure doesn’t seem to know.”

“Well, he’s survived some close battles — but I assume you’re looking for necromancy, not near-death experiences.” Julia drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. “And I know Magnus is no necromancer.”

“I figured as much. Did he _know_ any necromancers, though?”

Julia shook her head. “No. He’ll stand up to any authority figure if he believes they’re abusing their power, but that’s not because he just walks around looking for rules to break — it’s ‘cause he can’t stand injustice. He’s a good man, and I can’t _imagine_ him throwing his lot in with a lich or someone like that to flaunt the laws of life and death…”

Her voice trailed off. “Do you know how long ago these so-called crimes happened?” she asked.

“They all registered in our system at once, about twelve years ago. Needless to say, I’m assuming he didn’t die 19 distinct times within minutes of each other, so there must’ve been some warding that was previously hiding him from our detection. We’ve seen that kind of thing before, although never quite to the same extent.”

“Twelve years ago was before I knew him,” Julia admitted. “I’m not sure I even know where he was living or what he was doing twelve years ago.”

“Forgive me changing the topic, but are his parents still alive? Or any siblings, aunts, uncles?”

“He was an only child, and his parents passed away before I knew him — I think he was an adult at the time, but barely, so… that would’ve been thirteen, fourteen years ago, maybe? He never told me how they died and I never pressed him, so — wait a second, you’re the _Grim Reaper_. Shouldn’t you know _exactly_ who’s dead and who isn’t?”

“I really should,” Kravitz agreed, “and that’s the problem, actually. I can’t find _any_ relatives of Magnus in the registry of deceased souls — no parents, no grandparents, no cousins…”

“You only found people who were Magnus’s family by marriage,” Julia realized out loud. “That’s why you came to talk to me.”

Kravitz nodded. “Exactly — but it gets even weirder. Magnus’s fellow adventuring buddies and apparent death criminals are an elf named Taako and a dwarf named Merle, whom I don’t suppose you know —”

Julia gasped, not in recognition, but in dawning realization. “Don’t tell me you can’t find _their_ families, either.”

“All I found for Merle were some fourth cousins, and equally distant relatives. I couldn’t find _anything_ about Taako.”

“The plot sure has thickened, huh?” Julia muttered. “You’re right that I don’t know Merle or Taako, they must’ve been… you know, after my time. But I can swear to you, if this is some kind of — some kind of necromantic _conspiracy_ , then Magnus is the _victim_ , not the one behind it. He could not and _would not_ plan something like this for years while keeping it a secret all this time. He _wouldn’t_ have hid it from me or from Steven —”

“I believe you,” Kravitz told her, “and I believe Magnus, when he says he genuinely doesn’t know how he died nineteen times. But because I believe you, and because I think you’re right on the mark with regards to a necromantic conspiracy, I have one last question: have you ever heard the names Lup or Barry Bluejeans?”

Julia snorted quietly at the latter name, but shook her head. “No. Are they… necromantic conspiracy suspects?”

“You could say that. More specifically, they’re liches whom we first detected around the same time as Magnus. At the time, I assumed it was a coincidence, but now… well, there a few different first impressions of Magnus and his adventuring buddies that I’m reevaluating.”

“Tell me about it. That man contains multitudes.” Julia leaned back in her rocking chair. “If there’s anything else I can do to help exonerate Maggie — any questions or testimony you need — I’m sure you’ll be able to find me here for a long, long time, but… can I ask something of you, if it’s alright?”

“Depends. What is it?”

“Can you help me send a letter?”

***

For the first few hundred feet of the race, Noelle kept up with Taako via her rocket boosters, but then opted to save her fuel, and Garyl surged ahead towards the mountains.

“Eat my dust!” Garyl whinnied. “I’m gonna find those _oatssss_!”

“Liches, Garyl. We’re looking for liches,” Taako reminded him.

“Yeah, but liches always have some loose spectral oats in their robe pockets!” Garyl scaled the foothills with ease, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake. “Sometimes they even give me spectral sugar cubes! Why dontcha ever hang out with liches anymore?”

Taako yanked on the reins. “ _Excuse_ me?”

“ _You_ haven’t given me sugar cubes in decades,” Garyl moaned as they came to a halt. “Or even spectral carrots.”

Taako dismounted, turning away from the face of the mountain to look at Garyl in his iridescent rainbow eyes. “You gonna elaborate ‘bout me allegedly hanging out with liches, pal?”

“What is there to elaborate about? You used to hang with liches, and then you just —” Suddenly, Garyl’s eyes went wide. “Look out! Above you!”

Taako dismissed Garyl with a wave of his hand, and the binicorn disappeared in a flash of rainbow smoke. “Yeah, no, I’m not buying that. You’re just pulling my leg again —”

He turned around slowly and casually, not expecting to see anything out of the ordinary — only to find himself facing a crumbling mountainside, dozens of massive boulders already rolling on a trajectory straight towards him.

He instinctively raised his Umbra Staff, only to freeze up, no idea what spell he could cast in time to save himself — but then something in his peripheral vision flashed red, and not a full second later, he was standing atop a distant hill, a hundred meters away from the site of the rockslide.

“Are you okay?” a voice behind him rasped. “I didn’t mean to startle you — I know you probably had it under control, but I — I just panicked. Sorry.”

Taako turned around to face a familiar red-robed specter, two vaguely eye-shaped lights under his hood looking Taako over.

“You know, I was actually pretty _un_ -startled until you popped up behind me and started rasping in my ear! Let an elf have his personal space, Barold!”

“What?” The lights beneath Barry’s hood froze in place, as did every thread of his robe, paralyzed in spite of the gentle breeze. The rasp in his voice dissipated as he went on: “Taako, how much do you remember?!”

Taako blinked. “Remember?”

“Talk to me, Taako! Please!” Barry grabbed Taako by the shoulders, incorporeal hands trembling. “Do you remember ~~your sister~~? Do you remember Lup?”

“Ugh, that _sound_! Why do you have to do that right in my face?” Taako shrugged off Barry’s barely-tangible grip, clapping his hands over his ears. 

“You heard static?” Barry gasped. “Oh, no. _No_. I thought —”

“You _bet_ I just heard the worst five seconds of ASMR ever! What do you _want_ from me, man? All I know about Lup is that she’s a lich like you, ‘cause that’s all Kravitz could tell me —”

“ _Kravitz_ told you about us?!” 

“Yeah, he did! Told me you two were his most elusive bounties, and that I could never let my guard down around you!” Taako reached into the quiver slung over his shoulder, pulling out a sapphire arrow. “And I think it’s about time I gave him a heads up that you’re hanging out right here, soul ready for reaping —”

“Do NOT summon Kravitz!” Just seconds before Taako plunged the arrow into the ground, Barry tore it out of his hand and hurled it through a rift. “Why the _fuck_ would you summon Kravitz?!”

Taako’s grip tightened on his Umbra Staff, and Barry recoiled. The lights under his hood looked like they were melting, shedding glowing droplets that cascaded down some semblance of a face within the void.

“Taako, _please_ ,” Barry pleaded. “I’m not your enemy, and — and Lup isn’t either, I _swear_! She wouldn’t want this!”

Taako raised the Umbra Staff to cast, but no spell fired from the umbrella as it shuddered in his hand.

“You can’t listen to what Kravitz tells you — he doesn’t know _why_ we became liches! He doesn’t know about the Hunger!” Barry’s robe was fraying before Taako’s eyes, crimson threads unraveling at the edges of his sleeves. “What if — what if he thinks _you’ve_ cheated death? What if he sends _you_ to the Eternal Stockade?! Taako, I’m begging you, I — I — I don’t know what I would _do_ if I lost you too!”

Taako cast again, and the Umbra Staff still refused to fire, the beginnings of a spell entering his arcane focus on one end but never leaving it on the other. As Barry drifted closer, sparks jumping between stray red threads and face a mess of swirling light and shadow, Taako turned to his last resort — stalling for time.

“You know, Kravitz was thinking real hard about sending me to ghost jail the other day, but I convinced him not to. Don’t you want to hear my side of the story?”

Barry froze, the unraveling of his robe momentarily halted. “In the Miller lab? What happened?!”

“We made a deal. He was _going_ to arrest me, Magnus, Merle, Lucas, and Noelle — but I got an idea he liked better. I asked if he’d let us go free if we captured another bounty or two for him — so he gave us two months to capture you and Lup.” Taako shrugged, so focused on trying not to panic that he hardly noticed the sound of electricity crackling and fabric tearing. “So if you just turn yourself in, then at least you’ll only have to worry about me half as much.”

Barry convulsed as a jagged gash tore through his robe from shoulder to waist, an intangible darkness spilling out from within him and pooling on the ground below.

“LUP!” he shouted, voice echoing between mountains and through underground lairs for miles and miles. “They — they signed their own death warrant, Lup! I — I can’t do this without them, I can’t do this without _you_ — where ARE YOU?!”

“Taako! There you are!”

Magnus sprinted onto the scene, Merle and Noelle hot on his heels. He thrust himself between Barry and Taako, then pulled a sapphire arrow from his own belt, jabbing it into the shadow-covered ground at Barry’s feet. “Kravitz, we’ve got a bounty for you!”

The lights beneath Barry’s hood coalesced back into two flickering eyes that immediately fixated on the arrow, which was already engulfed in a crackling blue aura.

“Boys, I promise I’m going to fix this,” he rasped, and then vanished into thin air.

“Wait, come back!” Merle called out, rushing towards the spot where Barry had been floating. “I didn’t even get a chance to talk to you —”

Taako yelped as his Umbra Staff inverted, and the arrow flew through the air towards its maw — but milliseconds before the umbrella snapped shut around it, Kravitz manifested in a puff of smoke, already dual-wielding sapphire scythes. 

“Did you find Barry? Where is he?”

“He got away, I think,” Magnus sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have summoned you where he could see, but I rushed in because I was so worried about him hurting Taako —”

Noelle floated around Taako in tight circles, scanning him from all angles. “It doesn’t _look_ he hurt you, but… I’m getting some traces of conjuration magic? Did you have a wizard’s duel or something?”

“Oh, god no. I probably wouldn’t be alive if we had,” Taako admitted. His heart was still pounding, but he tried not to let it show. “Conjuration magic, though… let’s see. That would probably be from when he — when he teleported me away from the mountain, after those rocks started falling.”

“ _Those_ rocks?” Noelle gestured towards the massive pile of rubble at the foot of the nearest mountain. “Those look like they could’ve killed you!”

“I know, right?” Taako replied. “Very uncharacteristically benevolent of him to show up when he did.”

“As great as it is that you’re not dead, Taako, it was also very _convenient_ of him to show up when he did,” Kravitz paced across the hilltop, scythes crossed in front of him like the world’s most dangerous dowsing rods. “I can’t sense his presence anymore, meaning he’s squirreled himself away in some sort of warded hideout… but if he appeared out in the open here only shortly after you did, then that hideout of his must be nearby.”

He turned away from Taako, facing the mountains. “Which means he’s _still_ nearby.”

Taako felt his hand grow warm, and looked down to see his Umbra Staff, energized from the absorption of the arrow… and pointing directly at Kravitz’s back.

“Let’s search the area.” Kravitz continued. “Leave no stone unturned —”

Taako pointed the Umbra Staff towards the sky — not a moment too soon. A beam of white-hot plasma pierced the clouds above and bathed the entire mountain range in daylight for a fleeting moment, before it fizzled out with a crackle of electricity and a whiff of ozone.

Kravitz whirled around. “Taako?!”

“I didn’t cast that spell! I don’t know _how_ to cast that kind of spell!” Taako gasped. “My umbrella’s been acting up all night, but I didn’t know it could act up like _this_!”

Kravitz sighed and placed a hand on Taako’s shoulder.

“You know, on second thought,” he said, “maybe we should postpone the lich hunting until you get that thing checked out.”

***

Merle made a beeline for his bed the second the gang returned to the moonbase, while Taako took it upon himself to relay the night’s events to Angus as a bedtime story, and hopefully ensure that the kid actually got some sleep. Noelle had opted to stay planetside for a little longer and fly back up to the moon on her own later, explaining that she needed some time alone to process what had happened in Phandalin, and that left Magnus and Kravitz alone in the common room between the Reclaimers’ individual dorms.

“There’s no way Angus will relax enough to fall asleep in the next _week_ if he hears about what happened tonight,” Magnus sighed, collapsing onto the couch. “Either Taako lies and says nothing happened, or he uses a sleep spell on a ten year old. You wanna make a bet on which?”

“I’ll pass. But you just reminded me, I actually have something for you.” Kravitz rifled through the interior pockets of his vest, pulling out a piece of shimmering blue paper. Although folded over on itself several times, it still felt almost intangibly thin, like parchment woven from cobwebs or even air itself.

Magnus raised an eyebrow, skeptical. “That better not be magical junk mail.”

Kravitz smiled, slowly shaking his head. “I spoke with someone in the Astral Plane today who had a lot of good things to say about you,” he explained. “She’s waiting to see you again, but hopes that day won’t come too soon, and… well, I haven’t read her letter, but I’m sure it speaks for itself.”

Magnus accepted the paper gingerly, eyes tearing up as he unfolded it to reveal Julia’s handwriting. 

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Kravitz plucked a raven feather from his robe, transmuting it into a quill pen with a snap of his fingers before handing it to Magnus. “I don’t allow this kind of thing every day, so don’t go around telling too many people about it — but you can use this pen to write a response on the back. Fold it up again once you’re done, and it’ll make its way back to her.”

Magnus leapt up from the couch to crush Kravitz in a hug that would’ve knocked the air out of his lungs, had he still been alive and breathing. 

“Thank you,” Magnus repeated. “ _Thank you_ —”

Taako barged into the room, Umbra Staff slung over his shoulder. “You wanna guess what ‘cha boi had to do to get the kid to go to sleep? I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t — okay, what am I interrupting here?” 

A joke no doubt on the tip of his tongue, he froze as he noticed the tears running down Magnus’s face. “You okay there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” Magnus let go of Kravitz, wiping his eyes and picking up the pen and letter again. “I — I’ll be in my room. I need some time to… I just need some time.”

Taako nodded. “Don’t forget to get some sleep yourself. Apparently you humans need, like, eight hours of it, go figure.”

“He’ll be alright,” Kravitz whispered to Taako, as Magnus closed the door to his room. “He just got a letter from someone he hadn’t heard from in a while.”

“‘Course he’ll be alright. He’s _Magnus_ , he’s indestructible,” Taako replied, but Kravitz could hear the relief in his voice. “And in case you were wondering, the way to get Angus to fall asleep is to read him a detective story, but only as a distraction while you’re preparing a Sleep spell.”

Kravitz chuckled. “You know, speaking of distracting — what’s with that flashing Chug ‘N Squeeze sign on the moon campus? I don’t think it was there when I visited you the other day.”

“Oh, that? I think it’s some kinda wine and pottery place — why, you wanna check it out? ‘Cause it’s supposed to open in a day or two, or so says all the hottest moon gossip.”

“Well, I mostly just asked out of morbid curiosity, but it _does_ sound like something I could enjoy ironically — and maybe even unironically, as a break from all this lich hunting and detective work. Do you want to check it out with me?”

“Oh, a wine and clay vacation day with the Grim Reaper? That’s a hell yeah from Taako!”

***

The second Barry returned to his cave, he bolted straight for an unassuming chest beneath a pile of discarded scrolls and tattered jeans. Though it only occupied about two cubic feet, it was warded against everything from fire to water to acid, and sealed with an arcane lock — which Barry dismissed by uttering the passcode, _emergency bonds_.

From inside, he retrieved a handful of trinkets — a driftwood necklace from Merle, a wand that Magnus had once unsuccessfully tried to summon a dog familiar with, and most important of all, a dozen different wedding rings, all hewn from different materials and given in different ceremonies on entirely different worlds. Barry picked up the envelope beneath them and then gingerly placed them back in the chest, opening the envelope to look through the pictures it contained.

The shadowy essence of his lich form had stopped leaking out of his robe the second he’d opened the chest and been comforted with the wave of nostalgia, but he felt his soul stabilize even further as he pulled out the first picture. It was a candid shot of him, Lup, and Taako in the Starblaster’s lab, buried up to their elbows in notes as they studied the Light of Creation, which the camera had only been able to capture as a vague white blur. The three of them all had bags under their eyes, but they were still smiling. They’d been so determined to develop a new theory, to find the answers that would save them and their family.

And there was no reason for Barry to abandon that determination or give up on that goal now.

For the next four hours, he scrawled calculations on almost every blank scrap of paper he had at his disposal, comparing research he’s done half a century ago with papers he’d read on cycles even further back. He unfurled no less than five individual maps of Faerun, circling promising locations before changing his mind and scratching out all but a few that he’d personally visited in the past.

By the time his plan was complete, almost all of the rips in his robe had mended themselves — though he still looked unsettlingly threadbare, and he trembled slightly even while floating in one place.

_How long did Taako say they have? Two months, as of the crystal incident? There’s no need to panic — I’ve got time. I just need to play this smart._

He extended his senses outside of his lair, scanning the surrounding area for Kravitz or another emissary of the Raven Queen — and there was indeed an undead presence lurking near Phandalin, but unlike Kravitz, it lacked even the faintest trace of celestial energy. Even stranger, its aura seemed shielded, but less so than a lich possessing a living body would’ve been… as if the soul was inhabiting an inorganic body, instead.

The robot no doubt sensed him approaching, but gave no sign of signalling for help, which made Barry feel much better about his decision to venture out of the safety of his cave.

“Mister Bluejeans? That you?” she asked, and the sound of her voice was all it took for Barry to connect a series of dots that couldn’t have been further from his mind just a few moments ago.

“I _know_ you. You were in the Cosmoscope — and before that, you were in Phandalin. You were a halfling.”

“That’s right. I’m Noelle — Noelle Redcheeck. I’m surprised you remembered me.”

“I’m surprised _you’re_ not furious with me,” Barry whispered. “I couldn’t save you, or anyone else in Phandalin — I’m so sorry, Noelle. Maybe, _maybe_ , if I’d been in my lich form, I could’ve —”

“You tried your best,” Noelle assured him, “just like the Reclaimers. Really, the only person I should blame is whoever made that terrifying gauntlet in the first place —”

“No,” Barry interrupted. “I knew her, and I knew how implausible this will sound, but she _didn’t_ want this. She tried her best to stop it, too.”

Noelle took a moment to reply. “It sounds like you know a lot of things that the Bureau doesn’t.”

Barry nodded. “Speaking of which… I really shouldn’t stay out here in one place for much longer, or someone will sense me, be it the Bureau or Kravitz. Do you mind if we take this conversation somewhere else?”

“Just lead the way.”

They headed not to Barry’s main hideout, but to a slightly nearer cave that he used mainly for storage but had placed equally powerful wards over. Abjuration had never been his specialty, but his ability to pick it up on the fly had been invaluable during his time as a rogue lich — _and now,_ he thought, _my abjuring might be the one thing that saves my family’s lives. Funny how that works out._

“So, Noelle,” he asked out loud, “I saw you with Magnus and Merle earlier. Do they know you’re still down here?”

“I told them I wanted to stick around Phandalin for a while and think about what happened,” Noelle explained. “Which, come to think of it, wasn’t a total lie — because I _did_ want to talk to you about Phandalin, and I guess I got that chance after all. But I’m also here because I promised my detective friend that I’d ask you something.”

“Assuming your friend’s alive, then they probably won’t even be able to comprehend the whole answer — but fire away, and I’ll tell you what I can.” 

“Did the Voidfish erase the fact that you were a lich?”

“Getting right to the root of the problem, huh?” Barry paused. “Hmm. Let me put it this way — the Voidfish erased all memories that could make me _believe_ I was a lich. Whenever I’m alive, whenever I’m amnesiac, the idea that I could be a lich or even a necromancer just sounds like a _joke_. I’ve tried leaving messages to remind myself of that fact, after coming back to life — but my living self never believed it.”

“It sounded like a joke to Magnus and the others, too.”

Barry sighed. “That’s ‘cause they’ve lost a lot of memories of their own.”

“But… they’re inoculated. How is that possible?”

“Noelle, we’re well past the point where I need to warn you about keeping this conversation a secret from the Bureau, right? And… probably from your detective friend, too, assuming they work for the Director?”

“Yeah,” Noelle sighed. “Angus will be disappointed, but I understand.”

“There’s a second Voidfish,” Barry explained. “It’s very well guarded, and only the Director’s been inoculated by it — so she’s used it to erase all kinds of information, from the Reclaimers’ pasts to… a coming storm, which this world is unlikely to survive.”

“This storm… will it be worse than the Grand Relics? Worse than what happened to Phandalin?”

“It’ll be not just worse, but maybe even _infinitely_ worse. Because it’ll go on to destroy worlds beyond this one, if we let it.”

Barry had forgotten what it felt like to speak so freely about his past and the Hunger, to speak without worrying that his words would be distorted by static, and more and more information just poured out, far more than he’d initially intended to share.

“There is an entity called the Hunger that seeks to consume all of existence, and it’s only a matter of months until it begins its assault on this planar system. The Director and the Reclaimers and I, we were all like _family_ , and we worked together in search of a way to destroy this Hunger, but… we had some disagreements. And really, neither side was right, but Lucretia — Lucretia used the Voidfish to erase our whole mission, the Hunger included. I became a lich to protect my family from the Hunger, so… when I’m alive, I don’t have any memory of being undead. And my family doesn’t have any memories of me… aside from that time in Phandalin when I got Merle to stab himself with a fork, I guess, which probably didn’t leave a _great_ impression.” He managed a bitter laugh.

“How long ago did they forget?”

“Almost ten years ago.”

“I’m so sorry.”

It dawned on Barry that he was having most sincere, two-sided conversation he’d experienced in a decade — and ironically, the realization left him at a loss for words.

The same couldn’t be said of Noelle, who continued on without hesitation. “I promised my friend Angus not just that I’d get answers, but also that I’d look out for the Reclaimers. I don’t want the Grim Reaper, or the apocalypse, or whatever’s coming to hurt them — or anyone else in this world, like Angus, or Carey and Killian, or my family in Hogsbottom — so please, Mister Bluejeans, tell me what I can do to _help_. I want to _do_ something with this extra time the Reclaimers gave me.”

“If you get caught helping me,” Barry warned her, “you’ll be imprisoned one way or another — either on the moonbase, or in the Eternal Stockade, depending on who catches you.”

“Well first of all, it sounds like at the rate I’m going, I’m gonna end up either back in the Astral Plane, or consumed by this Hunger entity in a matter of months if I don’t do anything to help you,” Noelle replied. “And second of all, I’m not plannin’ to just give up and _let_ them arrest me if I do get caught.” She cocked her arm cannon.

Maybe it was risky to accept help from someone he barely knew, but Noelle had seemed nothing but sincere — and Barry had spent so long working alone that frankly, he was amazed it hadn’t killed him yet. He was a creature of bonds and of love; he sought out companionship by both nature and necessity. He didn’t know if he could do this alone, but alongside another undead soul who could actually _understand_ and _help_ , he knew for a fact that he _could_.

“Welcome aboard, Noelle.” Barry chuckled. “First things first: I’ve tried to stay out of the Raven Queen and her servants’ ways, because they’re really not evil at all, but if there’s _any_ chance of stopping the Hunger, then we’ll need Taako and the others’ help for sure. Which means we’re going to have to do _something_ about the Grim Reaper situation —”

“You know, I might have something to help with that.” A drawer Noelle’s main body slid open, revealing a sapphire-tipped arrow. “Magnus figured we should all have some summoning beacons on our person, in case of emergency.” She winked. “But I was thinkin’ we could use it to lure him into some kinda sinister trap.”

She paused. “He can’t eavesdrop on us through this thing, can he?”

“Not if we don’t say his name. But I’d close that drawer for now, just to be on the safe side.” Barry said as he summoned a scroll and pen, then started jotting down notes. “This is all perfect, though! I already hashed out the spell theory for a plan, but you just made it about a billion times easier to pull off — not just because of the arrow, but because you can gather components, and I won’t have to risk him sensing my location and realizing what I’m up to!”

“Makes sense,” Noelle replied, looking over Barry’s list. “That’s all you need me to get?”

“Yeah. I was thinking most of it would be salvageable from the Miller Lab — uh, except _maybe_ the iron filings, which are commercially available anyway.”

Noelle beamed. “I won’t let you down, Mister Bluejeans.”

“Thank you, Noelle.” Barry looked down at his robe, which looked less tattered and more vibrantly red than he’d seen it in years. “For everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies in advance if the update schedule gets a bit less consistent from here on out, since I’ve burned through my pre-written buffer chapters, but I’ve at least got a solid chunk of Chapter 6 written and a detailed outline for the chapters after that! It’s just about getting into the write headspace to write.
> 
> Comments are welcomed as always, and you can also find me/this fic on [tumblr,](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/623298253965918208/fear-the-reaper-a-lot-actually-chapter-5) where you can feel free to yell at me for making your favorite characters sad and/or conspiracy theorize with me about all that shit going on in Graduation right now! (I really want to write a lot of things for Graduation, but I'm committed to finishing this fic first.)


	6. Bird News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako unlocks a backstory reveal, Kravitz notices an astronomical discrepancy, and Noelle completes an errand. It’s an evening of relaxation and bonding for some, and a night of furtive preparation for others, but one thing is constant — everyone is missing a few pieces of the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guess what fic isn’t dead! Before we get into the action, I just want to state for the record that I, Rose, think mullets are generally a valid hairstyle (including on Barry Bluejeans). The opinions on mullets that a certain character expresses in this chapter are in no way representative of my views as the author. Anyways, enjoy the Taakitz before the storm!
> 
> (A “previously on,” since it’s been so long since the last chapter: THB all know Barry is the Red Robe, Barry knows THB are in trouble for death crimes, and he’s shared all his relevant backstory details with Noelle, who has agreed to help him save the boys from Kravitz with the endgame goal of stopping the Hunger. Kravitz has arranged a sort-of date with Taako, which he’s obviously excited for, but he doesn’t know a lich and a robot are out to get him. Meanwhile, Garyl doesn’t know why Taako stopped hanging out with liches about twelve years ago, and is really missing the spectral oats said liches always gave him. I think that’s everything everyone knows and doesn’t know!)

The Raven Queen had always reminded Kravitz of his mortal mother, not just because of the physical resemblance — which was indeed present, albeit slightly diminished by the beaked mask that concealed the Queen’s nose and eyes — but because of her temperament, kind but stern. She was a fair judge, and even a surprisingly forgiving one at times, but she held no reservations against telling people they could do better, if she believed it to be true.

So when the Queen approached Kravitz during his walk along the coast of the Astral Sea, in her usual form of a dark-skinned woman wearing a magnificent feathered cloak, Kravitz breathed a sigh of relief when he saw she was smiling at him. Her ethereal voice was both diminutive and thunderous at once, but thankfully free of disappointment or malice.

**My child.**

She unfurled not just one pair of midnight-black wings, but a hundred pairs, and suddenly she embodied an entire flock of ravens, circling Kravitz with impossible synchronicity and silence.

**Come fly with me.**

Kravitz leapt into the air, changing shape and sprouting wings of his own. In the form of a rook with dark blue-gray feathers and the pattern of an avian skull atop his head in light gray, he took off across the sea, and the Queen followed, casting a hundred identical shadows atop the waves.

This airborne sightseeing tour across the afterlife was not a new ritual for them — they’d done this countless times since the Raven Queen had first taught Kravitz to fly, lifetimes ago — but Kravitz had noticed, over the past century or two, that the Queen almost exclusively reserved these flights for days when Kravitz felt stressed.

They soared through a cloud of souls, which danced and shimmered like snowflakes in a gentle breeze, and as they exited it, he finally spoke. “It’s a pleasure to see you as always, my Queen, but… er, what is it that brings you here today?”

**My dear Kravitz, you’re even a bundle of nerves when you’re a bird. You’re not letting those elusive lich bounties get to you, are you?**

“I… I suppose I have been letting it get to me. In a way.”

**Kravitz, you are competent and you are worthy. You needn’t fear me reprimanding you — I have no doubt that you will capture them eventually. After all, you have a promising new strategy, don’t you?**

“My Queen, I…” Kravitz trailed off. The scenery of the Astral Plane changed with every flight, but today he’d stopped taking it in, preoccupied with wracking his brain for the right words. “I appreciate that — but it’s really that ‘new strategy’ you mention that I’ve been worrying about, not the liches themselves. I’ve been talking to Taako, and to a lesser extent Magnus and Merle, and —”

The flock’s flight slowed, and two hundred glassy raven eyes all fixated on Kravitz as he transformed back into a human, hovering in midair and clasping his hands together as he spoke.

“I didn’t believe them at first, but they _really_ don’t remember their crimes against death, I’m sure of it. They’re not dangerous people — dangerous to themselves when they rush into danger, maybe, but not dangerous to the _world_. They stopped Legion, and their friend Angus has been telling me about all the people they’ve saved from the Grand Relics, and I — I would not feel justified reaping their souls, even if they fail to capture Bluejeans and Lup. There’s just so much we don’t _know_ about how they’ve violated the laws of life and death — it may not have even been intentional on their part. My Queen, I sincerely believe we should grant them the same benefit of the doubt we grant to people roped into necromantic cults against their will — _I_ can vouch for their character, and I know many other souls, both living and dead, who will do the same.”

**Kravitz…**

The flock was completely frozen in place now, and though he didn’t need to, Kravitz held his breath — a nervous habit from his life that he still hadn’t broken after centuries.

**Is this why you’ve been stressed? Because you were anticipating this conversation?**

“Partly, my Queen.”

**I trust your judgement, Kravitz. I cannot pardon these three bounties altogether, knowing so little about their offenses — but if you deem it fitting, then I will grant them an indefinite respite as we investigate further. In the meantime, what do you propose for the escaped soul Noelle Redcheek and the necromancer Lucas Miller?**

“So far, neither of them have done ill with their borrowed time. Noelle never asked to return to the world of the living, and she fought heroically against Legion, while Lucas… well, I spoke to his mother, and she seemed confident that he’d learned his lesson. I think we should allow them to stay in the world of the living until they die, provided they commit no more necromantic offenses.”

**Then that shall be our policy moving forwards. Do keep an eye on Lucas, if nothing else, but I reviewed Noelle’s file personally this morning, and she sounds like a pleasant young spirit.**

Still hovering in the air, Kravitz executed a bow as he let out his breath. “I appreciate the trust, my Queen.”

**I will consult with Istus, to see if she can discern the pasts or destinies of the three… _unique_ bounties. Until then, they are to be presumed innocent.**

Kravitz smiled, because it was no secret that the Raven Queen relished every excuse to consult with the Lady of Fate. “I’m sure Lady Istus will be happy to hear from you.”

**She will, and I don’t need to be the goddess of fate to know that.** The ravens swarmed together, consolidating back into a seven-foot tall woman with dark brown skin, black roses adorning her hair, and sapphire-blue eyes glowing from behind the slits in her mask. She draped a cloaked arm over Kravitz’s shoulder as she continued: 

**Now, my child, you said something else was bothering you besides the status of your bounties?**

“Well, it’s… I just…” Kravitz shook his head. “Let me put it this way: do you ever get nervous before talking to Istus, even though you always like spending time with her and know she feels the same? I guess you probably don’t, because you’re a _goddess_ —”

**Oh, I do.**

“Oh.”

**Do you have a _commitment_ tonight? Let me guess — with Taako?**

Kravitz smiled sheepishly. “We… er, I’m not even sure which one of us talked the other into it, but we _might_ have arranged to go to a wine and pottery place on the moon together —”

**Of course, the Chug ‘N Squeeze. There’s one in the Celestial Plane as well.**

“You’re joking!”

**Istus and I have been going there often lately. She loves all arts and crafts, after all.**

Kravitz sighed. “Well, I _had_ been wondering where all the clay ravens in my office were coming from.”

**Do you like them, my child?**

“Oh, they’re wonderful. The _real_ office corvids like to perch on them, I guess to assert their dominance?”

The so-often stoic Queen laughed in a voice that could’ve belonged to a human, despite the cacophony of _caws_ that swept across the Astral Plane in place of an echo. **Kravitz, I’m sure your date will be _divine_. You have my blessing.**

“It is helpful, not having to worry about arresting Taako in less than two months,” Kravitz admitted. “Thank you, my Queen.”

**One last thing, my child — I’d like you to prioritize hunting down those _problem_ liches, unless anything else comes up. I can’t shake the suspicion that they’re connected to your former bounties’ cases — or should I say for Taako, your potential future boyfriend’s case?**

Kravitz spent a few seconds of increasingly awkward silence thinking about that second sentence, but ultimately decided that he didn’t want to challenge it. “Taako and his friends are doing important work of their own at the Bureau of Balance, and I don’t want to drag them away from that any more than I already have — but I’ll ask them to keep me updated if they find any new leads, and I’m quite sure they will. Bluejeans seems drawn to them, and to the Grand Relics, like a moth to a flame.”

**So I suspected,** the Raven Queen replied. **It seems Istus and I have much to discuss.**

***

With a dramatic flourish of his scythe, Kravitz stepped out of the rift and into Taako’s kitchen. Taako was leaning against the counter waiting for him, chin in his hands and a smug, catlike grin on his face.

“Sooo, notice anything _different_ about me?”

“Not sure. New hat?” Kravitz replied, feigning confusion. “Just kidding! The new haircut looks great.”

“Finally, someone realizes! Lumberjack Ruffboi and the lunar youth pastor didn’t say a thing about it.” Running his fingers through the considerably shorter hair in question, Taako snorted — apparently in response to the nicknames of his own invention — and Kravitz chuckled along with him.

“Don’t get me wrong, you wear the shorter hair well, but why cut it now?” he asked Taako. “It wasn’t _that_ long —”

“Not _that_ long? It was turning into a _mullet_ , Krav, and that’s fuckin’ unacceptable. Can you imagine us walking into a five-star, _metropolitan_ establishment like the Chug ‘N Squeeze together, you absolutely killing it — pun totally intended — in your feathered cloak and designer suit, only for me to saunter in behind you, sporting an honest-to-Raven Queen _mullet_? Who do you take me for, Barold J. _fucking_ Bluejeans?”

“Of course!” Kravitz sarcastically conceded, laughing. “ _Clearly_ , I was running the risk of mistaking _you_ —” He gestured to Taako, brown-skinned and freckled with distinctly pointed ears, “for my old undead archnemesis _Barry_ —”

He stopped talking as Taako dove to catch his Umbra Staff, which had rolled off the kitchen table seemingly all on its own. 

“Hey, what gives?” Taako demanded of the umbrella. “I thought we were cool again after the other night — you got something against me trash-talking mullets, or what?” 

The Umbra Staff didn’t reply, and Kravitz rubbed his neck. “Er… you talk to your umbrella often?”

Taako shrugged. “Yeah, and I talk to my wizard hat and my favorite fantasy electric mixer too, sometimes. S’no biggie.”

“Sometimes people in the Material Plane give me strange looks for talking to corvids, so I guess I can’t judge,” Kravitz admitted. “But speaking of talking to birds, I have good news!”

Taako slung his Umbra Staff over his shoulder. “Oh, bird news? That’s my favorite kinda news!”

“I spoke to the Raven Queen this morning, and… well, you’re not _entirely_ out of trouble, but you don’t have to worry about that two month time limit anymore! The Queen decided that since no one knows exactly what your crimes were, we can’t judge you for them fairly, so you and the boys are safe at _least_ until someone cracks that mystery — potentially safe forever, if the truth comes out and the Queen finds it sympathetic. Noelle and Lucas have also been granted amnesty, so don’t worry about them either.”

“Huh.” Taako rubbed his head, blinking slowly a few times. “So… we’re calling it quits on the lich hunts ‘til further notice?”

“More or less, but I’ve got a hunch you’llrun into Barry again whether you’re looking for him or not,” Kravitz answered. “So if or when that happens, I’d love a tip off.”

“Gotcha.” Taako nodded slowly. “Well, at least this’ll be good for Angus. Little half-pint can finally chill out instead of worrying about me all day.”

“Absolutely. See, when I went to beseech the Raven Queen, a big part of my argument was that reaping these doofuses’ souls would make an over-stressed ten-year old very sad,” Kravitz joked, deadpan. “So she really had no choice but to give you a respite — wait. What do you mean, _at least_?”

“Oh, you know.” Taako shrugged, averting his eyes. “It’s just the end of a short-lived bounty hunting era for ‘cha boy. It was dangerous work, but hey, my whole job is dangerous, right? Solving a lich mystery was a nice break from the routine —”

Then he sighed. “Oh, what happened to me? What happened to _Taako’s good out here?_ I’m not into peril! I shouldn’t be missing it no matter how much…” He met Kravitz’s gaze again, smiling sheepishly this time. “No matter how much I’m gonna miss you, when you’re busy hunting ghosts and I’m busy hunting Grand Relics again.”

“Ah.” Kravitz felt his face grow warm — which should be a rare for a reaper without blood or a heartbeat, but seemed to be happening an awful lot around Taako lately. “Well, if it’s any consolation, the Raven Queen’s pretty generous with vacation days — after all, how do you think I made time for our date tonight?”

Taako’s eyes lit up. “Oh, we’re _officially_ calling it a date? I mean, I knew the _subtext_ was there, but why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”

Kravitz clapped a hand to his mouth, several seconds too late. “That was — oh, gods. That honestly wasn’t — that truly wasn’t intentional, but if you _want_ it to be a date? I would _love_ to call it one.”

“Okay, okay, I got a related idea for you —” Taako leaned in a little closer, and for the first time, Kravitz noticed the flecks of gold and burgundy in his dark brown eyes. “How about we just stop making idiots of ourselves and kiss already?”

Then Taako leaned back and facepalmed. “Damn, I shoulda said ‘stop making idiots of ourselves and _make out_ already!’ That works so much better than —”

Kravitz kissed him on the cheek — just a quick peck, made brief not by a lack of interest in kissing Taako, but by Kravitz’s reluctance to tear his eyes away from Taako’s own for any longer than a few seconds. Taako kissed him back, running his hand down the back of Kravitz’s neck —

Then he withdrew with a jolt. “Aw, we’re about to be late to pottery, aren’t we? I even made reservations —”

“Not while you’re dating me, you’re not!” Kravitz exclaimed, drawing his scythe and slicing open a rift that led directly to the Chug ‘N Squeeze. He grabbed Taako by the hand, and the two of them laughed as they tumbled through the portal, scaring the wits out of the host but earning a cheer from Killian and Carey. Magnus — who was contentedly third-wheeling behind the couple, in his weirdly wholesome Magnus way — raised an eyebrow at first, but then gave a friendly wave and returned to the misshapen cup he was molding.

“Today,” the instructor coughed, clutching his chest, “we’ll be walking through how to make plates. Please, for the love of all the gods in the universe, do _not_ make clay interplanar portals, because we’ve already had more than enough of that.”

“What fun!” Taako exclaimed he settled into his seat, then whispered under his breath to Kravitz: “I dunno what I’m making, but it’s not gonna be a plate. _Real_ art is born when you start out with no plan, and go wherever the moment takes you.”

“Honestly? You do you, but I can’t really relate. Like, maybe it’s because music is the only type of art I normally pursue — but I’d rather have sheet music in front of me as a jumping off point, even if I’m planning to improvise, you know?”

“You were a bard? I shoulda known.” Taako tried to shape his clay into something that could pass for a plate or platter at a glance, yet remain legally distinct. The instructor gave him a suspicious look, but quickly moved on to reprimand Magnus for attempting to recreate his wineglass. “Love you for that, and you _know_ you’ll have to show off your kickass music skills for me one day, but how does a _bard_ wind up working for the death goddess?”

“Interesting story, that,” Kravitz admitted. “You want the long version, or the short version?”

“I dunno, maybe a brief novella?”

“Okay. Yeah, I can work with novella length.” Kravitz leaned back in his chair, removing a few clumps of clay from under his nails. “At the beginning of the end of my lifetime, give-or-take eight hundred and twenty years ago, my sibling and I were travelling a dangerous road, and we got in over our heads. We were passing through an abandoned cemetery, and… it’s hard to forget how we were just _joking_ about how ominous it was…”

He got a distant look in his eyes. “But the second we started to laugh, a gang of bandits jumped out from behind the graves to ambush us. Now, I was a damn good bard and my sibling was a damn good artificer, but we were unprepared for combat — and, worse outnumbered five to two. We pruned their ranks to four, then three, when the first two ruffians tried to charge us, but the other three had both range and cover, and they rained arrows on us from both sides of the road. My sibling took a hit that left them in critical condition, so… I did the only thing a protective older brother could do, upon finding oneself and their injured loved one assailed in a cemetery. It was a split-second, desperate decision, but… I played a song to raise the dead.”

“You did a death crime,” was what Taako said out loud, but what he thought was _I’d do the same thing._ Which was strange, not just because he couldn’t play any instruments, but because he _definitely_ didn’t have a sibling whose peril would prompt such an arcane outburst from him. 

He would’ve _liked_ to have someone like that, though. Someone to unconditionally watch his back on those tough journeys, someone who’d raise the dead for him, someone —

Someone to tell him to quit psychoanalyzing himself on date night, come _on_ , Taako, you’re giving yourself a _headache_.

“As rash as it was, I’d do it all over again if I had to,” Kravitz confessed, apparently too focused on the story to notice what _must’ve_ been visible confusion on Taako’s face. “Though maybe don’t tell the Raven Queen I said that, because it was… quite the crime.”

Absentmindedly, he picked up a few extra clumps of clay and began to roll them into a thin cylinder between his palms. “The graveyard the bandits had chosen was a good place to ambush travellers, but the _perfect_ place to be ambushed _by_ the undead. The zombies I raised were individually weak, but there must’ve been close to two dozen of them, and they surrounded the ruffians that had surrounded us. While they bought us time, I poured all the power I had left into healing my sibling from the brink of death — and it was all worth it, because _they_ got away safe…”

“But you didn’t,” Taako murmured.

“No,” Kravitz confirmed. “But don’t look so glum. The ending of the story’s not _all_ sad.”

He placed the clay cylinder on his plate-in-progress, flattening it slightly as he affixed it to the rest of his project, then set to work shaping another clump into something quite different. “When I died, I was almost immediately met by the Raven Queen’s reaper at the time. She was… not exactly _thrilled_ that I’d summoned a minor undead army — an undead militia, she called it — but my zombies and the bandits had more or less mutually destroyed each other, while she saw I was a first-time offender who’d only acted in self-defense, and wasn’t putting up a fight as I was escorted away from the world of the living. She told me she would be keeping an eye on me for the first few years of my afterlife, just to make sure I hadn’t developed a taste for necromancy and decided to hatch an escape plan from the Astral Plane, and then escorted me to a a pleasant little island in the Astral Sea.”

Kravitz added the final piece of clay to his creation, and Taako realized he’d formed a raised scythe pattern at the plate’s center. “Hopefully this sticks when it goes into the kiln. Anyway, I spent about the next five years on that island, but the reaper brought me plenty of instruments to play and books to read upon my request, so it was hardly a punishment. I was surprised, though, the day she showed up and said that the Raven Queen had requested my presence.”

“Aha. Now _here’s_ the start of your career, right?”

“Exactly. When she offered me an apprenticeship as the next reaper-in-training, I was initially… apprehensive, to say the least, but I eventually accepted the offer, and… well, you know perfectly where the story goes from here. I was a better fit for the job than I could’ve ever expected, and… there were some nice perks, too.” He smiled. “For one thing, I got to spend a few months with my sibling and parents after each of them passed away.”

“I’m glad that worked out for you,” Taako said, with a sincerity he rarely used in combination with those particular words. For the first time since Kravitz had started talking, he took a good look at his own clay, which looked like… a misshapen lump, or maybe an especially boring rock. He probably could’ve paid more attention to what he was doing, but at least he hadn’t gone and subconsciously made a plate.

“But you know,” he went on, stroking his chin, “I’m _intrigued_ by this implication that by peacefully turning myself in for death crimes, I could get nominated for a reaper job…”

Kravitz laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t recommend that loophole. Maybe if the Queen _hadn’t_ approved your respite, I would suggest it as a last resort —”

“What’s wrong, afraid of me stealing your job?”

“No — I’ve been a reaper for eight centuries, but the one who trained me only retired about four hundred and fifty years ago. Two to four reapers serving concurrently isn’t uncommon. The problem is, the Queen usually chooses reapers who have some prior knowledge of necromancy — without having used it for evil or anything, of course — and unlike most of my bounties, Taako, you don’t seem to be a necromancer? I mean, I’m sure you could _learn_ , because you’re clearly a skilled wizard, but I wouldn’t encourage it. You’re just starting to get _out_ of trouble as is.”

“If you insist,” Taako said with an exaggerated sigh. “So the Raven Queen’s ideal recruits would be, what, a couple of lich superheroes who swore to only use their dark powers for good?”

“In an ideal world, yes — but certainly not in the universe _we_ live in, because those kind of liches don’t exist on any plane I’ve visited. Like I said, I’ve been doing this centuries, and even the rare times I’ve seen liches start out with good intentions, they can’t hold it together once they actually become undead. I guess _Barry_ has _debatably_ held it together, at least compared to the baseline for liches, but gods know what _his_ intentions are, so I don’t plan on offering him a job any time soon.”

Taako took a sip of his wine. “You could still set him up for an interview sometime, just to see,” he suggested, completely deadpan. “Maybe he’ll surprise you.”

***

The view of the night sky was gorgeous from the moonbase, perhaps even on par with the blue-tinged literal heavens of the Astral Plane — but there was also something _off_ about the view tonight, something Kravitz couldn’t quite place.

“What an atmosphere, am I right?” Taako sat down on a bench, still cradling Kravitz’s plate gingerly in his arms. “Who needs telescopes when you can stargaze from the moon?”

“If we ever have another artistic date, we should come out here earlier and try and paint this,” Kravitz agreed aloud. Internally, he was only growing more puzzled as he ran through a laundry list of variables.

The moonbase’s artificial lights had long since dimmed for the evening. They were _miles_ above any other sources of the light pollution that plagued the modern world. The sky was cloudless from horizon to horizon, and the real moon was barely a crescent, hardly a bright enough beacon to drown out the lights of any stars.

So why did the sky look _emptier_ than Kravitz remembered it ever looking in his lifetime, as if an invisible black backdrop at the edge of the Material Plane had slowly inched closer, smothering the most distant stars one by one and dimming the night by a barely-perceptible degree? Was his memory all wrong, or had something subtle yet cosmically pivotal _changed?_

“One of our artistic dates has _got_ to be something musical,” Taako went on, apparently either unconcerned by the state of the sky or oblivious to it. “You keep up with modern music at all?”

“Mmm, on and off. Not so much recently, but I went to a lot of concerts last century.” Kravitz noticed Taako shivering slightly as a stiff breeze blew past, and draped his raven-feather cloak over Taako’s shoulder.

“Hey, thanks. Will RQ hand these cloaks out to any old Joe, or do you have to be a reaper to wear one?”

“You have to be a reaper to _receive_ one —” Kravitz winked. “— but I have an extra I could loan you, if you _promise_ you won’t wear it next time you commit a death crime.”

“It’ll get me more use than the Cloak of the Manta Ray, that’s for sure,” Taako snorted. 

He pecked Kravitz on the lips, and Kravitz kissed back before the two of them both looked back up to the sky again, hand in hand this time.

“This is a very weird question,” Kravitz began, “but do you know how often visible stars go out? It can’t be very often, can it?”

Taako frowned. “Depends. You mean, like, as supernovas, or in the more anticlimactic ways?”

“Either, really. I just… I kind of thought there would be more stars visible from here than you can see from the surface, but the sky looks a little _emptier_ than I remember from stargazing when I was alive.”

“That _is_ weird,” Taako agreed, “‘cause stars all die eventually, and get reborn from the dust left behind — but they burn for millions or _billions_ of years first. A few centuries is just chump change to stars; there’s no way it should make _that_ much of a difference —”

“Okay, that’s what I thought,” Kravitz said. “Maybe my memory’s just cloudy…”

“Hmm. I guess that’s one explanation.” Taako rubbed his chin, then leaned back to rest his head on Kravitz’s shoulder as he squinted at the galaxies overhead. “ _Hmmm._ ” His murmur turned to a hum, his breath pleasantly warm on Kravitz’s neck.

“I’m sure you’ve studied more astronomy than I have, so I’ll leave this mystery to you,” Kravitz told him. “I prefer my mysteries down to earth, or maybe in the Underworld —”

“Me? Astronomy? _Studying?_ ” Taako laughed, and Kravitz felt him shiver. “You’re giving me too much credit. I just…”

He paused. “Just kinda picked up the basics in my free time, I guess.”

“Your free time where, at wizard school?” Kravitz teased.

“Nope! Taako’s Amazing Self-Taught Wizard Homeschool for life, baby. I just read about astronomy… here and there, I guess. Probs a library, not that it really matters…” Frowning, Taako rubbed his head, and Kravitz saw his hand come away damp with sweat. 

“Speaking of libraries, we should visit one together sometime,” Kravitz pivoted, and was relieved to see Taako smile again, sitting up a little taller. “I love catching up on science that was contentious in my lifetime, like germ theory, or what will happen when the sun goes out —”

“Oh, that’s an easy one for us nowadays. We’ve got a few billion years before it turns into a white dwarf and eventually goes nova — not _super_ nova, mind you, but still pretty nova. You won’t wanna be around for it.”

“I’ll try and retire from immortality before then,” Kravitz chuckled. “I’m sure my work would be cut out for me reaping —”

An electric buzz infiltrated the back of his mind, and he tapped two fingers to his temple, adjusting the celestial signal. “I’m so sorry. Hang on a second.”

“Business call?” Taako asked dejectedly.

“Yeah. Necromancers wait for no stargazing date nights.” Kravitz relayed a silent message of confirmation back to the Raven Queen, and lowered his fingers, cutting off the connection. “Alright, the Rockport Fantasy Costco got caught selling necrotic artifacts — _again_ — but it’s not _that_ urgent. Any other couples’ activities you want to squeeze into, let’s see, the next five minutes?”

Taako shook his head. “Nah, better to save all the good stuff for next time than to rush it. But speaking of that — when should next time be?”

“I have no idea when I’ll be free, honestly —” Kravitz admitted, “— but I just remembered! You’re not a wanted man anymore, so I can give you my Stone frequency!”

“Aw, hell yeah!” Taako rummaged through pockets full of pudding and magical trinkets, eventually procuring his own Stone of Farspeech. “Here, plug in your contact info and I’ll text you back —”

“Oh, gods, I was just going to read you my number! Your way is so much more efficient —”

“Hey, Old Man Krav, don’t be _too_ hard on yourself! Most people your age wouldn’t even know what a Stone of Farspeech _is_ —”

Caught up in parting banter, neither Kravitz nor Taako noticed when directly overhead, another star vanished without fanfare as the encroaching void swallowed it whole… 

But miles below, at a furtive meeting in the foothills of an ill-charted mountain range, two undead spirits were all too aware.

***

Barry supposed it was obvious that he was nervous. In lieu of a racing heartbeat, the scarlet threads of his robe were repeatedly unravelling, then weaving themselves back together in a slightly different pattern each time — though he supposed he should count his blessings, since at least Noelle looked a lot less horrified than she honestly had the right to be.

“I think I got everything,” she told him, completely unfazed as he snatched the sack of components from her with a shaking, blurry hand. He really hadn’t meant to _snatch_ it, like a feral cat snatching food from a human hand it didn’t yet trust. It had just sort of _happened_ that way.

“Thank you,” was what he meant to tell her, but the sound that came out was indistinguishable from nails on a chalkboard, and he tried again. “Thank you, Noelle.”

The second time, it was more of a _rasp_ — a lot like the voice he’d put on to talk to Taako, Merle, and Magnus in Goldcliff, except not at all intentional this time — but at least it was recognizably _his_ , and for that, he was willing to settle.

“Mister Bluejeans, are you… okay?” Noelle asked him — and _there_ it was, the question he’d been waiting for. “You’re surrounded by an awful lot of crimson lightning.”

“I’ve dealt with worse. I’ll live,” he told her. “Well, no, bad word choice — I’ll _survive_. Liches like me just… don’t handle negative emotions well, but better I express it than repress it. Besides, I’ve gotten through worse before.”

It must’ve helped, talking to someone who reacted to his eldritch nervous tics with concern rather than horror — because the rasp in his voice started to subside, and his hands looked almost human again, albeit incorporeal, as he sorted through the bag of components Noelle had delivered:

Iron filings by the pound. A few jade crystals, imperfect yet sufficient for their purposes. An arcane core, currently deactivated, yet surrounded by a humming magical aura made from practically the same stuff as Barry’s own current form.

And last but not least, several handfuls of black opals — an unpleasant reminder of the Hunger’s approach, of the stars blinking out and the color being sapped from the world. Their shifting pattern iridescence was so familiar that Barry could _easily_ imagine pure white eyes opening on the surface of the gems, even though he _knew_ he was safe, that these stones were nowhere _near_ perfect circles.

“These will work,” he reported. “Really, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Oh, come on. It’s the least I could do,” Noelle told him. “Did you finish the cannon upgrade?”

“Sure did.” Barry returned her cannon arm to her, and she reattached it gingerly, humming with satisfaction as she tested moving it around. “Had to override a couple of Lucas’s anti-modding measures, and it’s gonna be a hassle to recharge, but it’s all set up to deal radiant damage now. Just _please_ don’t test it in here, ‘cause my poor subterranean lair may not survive.”

Noelle laughed. “Gotcha. Once I get some practice shots in, I’ll be ready to set the trap. You feeling up to it?”

“I _still_ don’t feel ready,” Barry admitted, “but it’s not like I’ve got any other options, besides sitting here and worrying more. I just… I just have to take it one step at a time.”

He placed the opals back in the bag, along with the other components and a wand he’d made specifically for writing runes. Out of sight and out of mind, if only for a brief respite.

_Tomorrow, I’m saving my family from the Grim Reaper,_ he resolved. _Then, I can worry about saving the planar system._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, comments/[reblogs](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/631632075139776512/fear-the-reaper-a-lot-actually-chapter-6) are welcomed as always!
> 
> Taako is actually wrong about what will happen to _this_ planet’s sun in billions of years — white dwarfs only go nova if they’re located in binary or otherwise multiple star systems, like a certain two-sunned planet had ;) There’s also a couple references to the Grand Relics in this chapter that I like to think are clever, let me know if you caught them!
> 
> (Also, describing the Taakitz kiss as “a peck on the cheek” was a certified 100 percent intentional bird pun — shoutout to this fic’s awesome beta Fex for encouraging me to take that joke and run with it completely seriously!)


	7. Fear For The Reaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus leads a virtual book club meeting. Kravitz connects the dots. Taako makes significant updates to the list of people he trusts and things he believes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit by bit, we’re inching closer to the endgame! Lots of plot and angst in this update, but also I think I might’ve implied that Minecraft exists in Faerun, so it evens out, y’know?

By virtue of their trance state replacing sleep, elves were _supposed_ to be good lucid dreamers. Taako had always experienced mixed results, but never moreso than tonight, with a dream that started out all saccharine romantic fantasy — fishing with Kravitz and sharing a kiss after falling into the lake together — before a clap of thunder and an unholy scream plunged the world into darkness and left one single source of light, one last surviving star, cradled in Taako’s unassuming hands.

Then a ripple in the darkness, the invisible maw of some ravenous entity, closed around that final star — and Taako screamed, as loud as he could muster yet still not loud enough to drown the ringing in his ears, as he flailed in the dark against the invisible monster that stole the world from him —

At once, two hands closed around his own, one cold and the other warm. On Taako’s left was Kravitz, aghast but holding himself together, a steely composure to his posture despite the fear in his eyes.

On Taako’s right was a Red Robe — but not Barry, and in fact not _anything_ like what Taako had started to accept as _normal_ for Red Robes. Where Barry had a clouded darkness in place of hands and a face, this lich had pure _**static**_ escaping from within her sleeves and beneath her hood, crackling and constantly changing shape like lightning, or… like _**fire**_.

Taako sat up in his bed covered in cold sweat, heart pounding as he realized his legs were hopelessly tangled in his sheets, and only slightly slowing when he realized there was nothing in his bedroom to run from. 

Elves were _supposed_ to rarely awaken late, but Taako’s wizard hat-shaped alarm clock — a gift that Angus that he’d quietly appreciated, even though it should have been redundant — indicated that it was mid-morning, and when he trudged out into the common area, he found no sign of his doormates besides a note written in Magnus’s distinctive scrawl.

_I know you were busy last night, so we’re letting you sleep in while we go play Fantasy Kickball on the quad! Killian and Avi are team captains and their rivalry is fierce, so we’ll probably be playing all day if you want to join us! Love, Magnus! (And Merle)_

Taako didn’t realize how relieved he was until he felt himself let out a sigh.

He had a sinking feeling that the same dream — or at least, a _similar_ dream — had played out more than once that night, looping over and over again as he repeatedly failed to remember, much less control, where it was going. He felt too exhausted to be operating on even a single _minute_ of dreamless sleep, and didn’t even want to _think_ about holding a conversation with anyone…

Well, with _most_ people. There was _someone_ he’d really been meaning to chat with, before he’d been distracted by haircuts and Kravitz and pottery and stargazing and Kravitz.

He transmuted a mug of lukewarm tap water to a piping hot, high-caffeine tea, then picked up his Umbra Staff, and conjured a familiar phantom steed with twin horns that nearly grazed the ceiling as he reared and whinnied.

“Yooo! Mornin’, Taako!”

“Morning, Garyl.” Taako yawned. “Could you do me a favor, and tell me literally _anything_ you know about the liches you said I used to hang out with?”

***

 **CalebClevelandFan#2045:** All early-installment weirdness aside, I really do think it’s a great introduction to the series! Because of the retcons you’ll encounter later, there are some conspiracy theories that the most recent arc of Caleb Cleveland was ghostwritten to maximize the publishing rate (which I think is hogwash, because continuity errors are going to be inevitable no matter who’s writing) but I guess I’ll let you decide for yourself when you get there! Do you need to stop by the moon again to borrow Book 2?

 **ReaperAwMan#1672:** No thank you, Angus! I think I’m going to try and download the “digital” version, now that I know I can do that on my Stone! Taako told me about that feature and a lot of others last night, so if I can’t get it to work, I’ll just call him and ask him to walk me through it. :)

 **ReaperAwMan:** Did I use the smiley face correctly?

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Yes! :) You’ve picked up on technology a lot faster than my grandpa did.

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Did Taako _also_ choose your username on this app, though?

 **ReaperAwMan:** How did you know? Is it a reference to something? :)

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Um

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Yes, but it’s a long story. It’s not mean-spirited or anything, though! I think it’s pretty funny!

 **ReaperAwMan:** Okay! :)

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Is that all for book club today? If it is, Mr. Kravitz, I just want to say that I’d be happy to talk to you again about Caleb Cleveland anytime!

 **CalebClevelandFan:** It means a lot to me, but I understand if you’re too busy _(message edited)_

 **ReaperAwMan:** Oh, there’s always time for book club, Angus!

 **ReaperAwMan:** But I admit, I have had a lot on my mind…

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Is it the liches? Since the Reclaimers aren’t in trouble anymore? (By the way, I went to tell Noelle she didn’t have to worry about getting reaped, but apparently she’s visiting family, so I left a message with her teammates Carey and Killain..)

 **ReaperAwMan:** Excellent deduction. (And thank you for that. I hope she gets the message soon.)

 **ReaperAwMan:** You’re right, I’m still hunting Lup and Barry Bluejeans, but… I just can’t shake the feeling that they’re connected to Taako and the others.

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Really? What makes you say that?

 **ReaperAwMan:** Well, I didn’t think much of this for a _long_ time, and now I’m kicking myself for it, but their bounties registered in our system at the same time as Taako’s, Magnus’s, and Merle’s. We figured it was just a widespread detection glitch, which _has_ happened before on a much smaller scale, but now it feels awfully suspicious. The Reclaimers have also encountered Barry at least four times now, without even seeking him out the first three times, whereas finding Barry is my _job_ , and _I_ get a lead on him about twice a year, if I’m lucky.

 **CalebClevelandFan:** That is odd. Did any other bounties show up at that same time? Do you know if _they_ have any kind of connections to Barry?

 **ReaperAwMan:** Only two others, for a couple of people named Lucretia and Davenport. They must be living like hermits, because it’s been 12 years and I know as little about them as I do about Lup. Not a lot of leads there, I’m afraid.

_(CalebClevelandFan is typing…)_

_(CalebClevelandFan is typing…)_

**CalebClevelandFan:** Hmm. Huh! I wish I could say those names meant something to me, but I’ve never heard them before in my life! Truly unfortunate, that. But, I do suspect that Barry appearing to the Reclaimers is because the Red Robes made the Grand Relics, and it’s the Reclaimers’ job to track those seven relics down!

 **ReaperAwMan:** You mean to tell me that _Barold J. Bluejeans_ made a Grand Relic, and the Reclaimers _all_ knew that information, but didn’t think it would be important to tell me?! This is simultaneously the most and least surprised I’ve been at any point in my afterlife.

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Well, I guess there’s a reason I’m the moon’s resident boy detective and they aren’t, sir! 

**ReaperAwMan:** Wait. Angus.

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Yes?

 **ReaperAwMan:** Seven relics. Seven _bounties_.

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Sorry, sir, I’m not following. What’s the connection?

 **ReaperAwMan:** I know this is going to sound _impossible_ , but…

 **ReaperAwMan:** Taako is a transmutation wizard. The Philosopher’s Stone can transmute any material into anything else. Merle is a nature cleric, and the Gaia Sash offers control over natural disasters and the wilderness. Then of course, Barry is a lich like no other, and the Animus Bell is the most dangerous necromantic artifact I’ve _ever_ been tasked with monitoring. I don’t know _exactly_ how Magnus fits into this, or how the other three bounties have managed to hide from me, but…

 **ReaperAwMan:** I think Taako, Merle, and Magnus made three of the Grand Relics!

 **ReaperAwMan:** Angus? Are you still there?

 **CalebClevelandFan:** Sorry, I just rebooted my Stone, but I _still_ can’t read your second-to-last message! It just looks like static, but I was inoculated, so that shouldn’t be possible!

 **ReaperAwMan:** I’m not sure what you mean by “inoculated,” but if the app is glitching, then do you want me to call you? 

**CalebClevelandFan:** It may not be the app, sir. And if it isn’t, I fear a phone call won’t make any difference… but I just got an idea! I’m going to go check if Noelle is back yet — she should be able to help with this. Please bear with me for a few minutes, sir!

 **ReaperAwMan:** Okay, then… good luck!

Head in his hand, Kravitz scrolled back up to the offending message, reading it over once more.

_I think Taako, Merle, and Magnus made three of the Grand Relics!_

It made sense, but it _shouldn’t_ have. Despite all the questions it answered, it raised more in their place — and Kravitz had been ready to accept that he was wrong, ready for brilliant little Angus to chime in with a piece of evidence that refuted it all...

Except that message, and that message alone, hadn’t made it to Angus in the first place — and wasn’t that the _most_ damning, of all the so-called coincidences aligning before Kravitz’s eyes?

 _The Reclaimers made Grand Relics and consorted with liches. The Reclaimers can’t_ remember _making Grand Relics or consorting with liches._

 _Someone is hiding the truth from the Reclaimers,_ and _from Angus. Someone is hiding the truth from the entire Bureau of Balance._

 _Is it Barry? Does he have that much power? Is he_ working _with someone? With Lup?_

Kravitz summoned his scythe with the full intention of warping straight to the moonbase, and bringing his four friends from the Bureau directly back to the Astral Plane — not to take them prisoner, but simply to get them somewhere _safe_ , somewhere to talk without Queen-knows-what outside forces eavesdropping or interfering. Yet before he could open a rift, Kravitz’s vision flashed blue, and a faint yet familiar tug directed his focus towards a much different region of the Material Plane.

A voice echoed in his head, too distorted to identify the speaker, but the words themselves were clear enough:

_Kravitz, help!_

Kravitz’s Stone of Farspeech clattered onto his desk as he raised his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes, honing in on the location of the summoning arrow. It was surrounded by undead presences of several shapes and forms, but one aura outshone all the others — one unmistakable red aura, crackling with power, and… _desperation_.

There was a very short list of people on the Material Plane with access to this kind of summoning beacon — and no matter what dark secrets their pasts held, Kravitz couldn’t bear the thought of _any_ of them being left alone with an incredibly powerful, secret-keeping, Relic-crafting lich who had finally, finally _snapped_.

With a frantic swing of his scythe, he ripped open a jagged portal to the arrow’s location, and leapt through without even pausing to retrieve his Stone.

_Hang on, boys! I’m coming!_

***

“If you wanna hear anything about liches,” Garyl declared, “that information comes with a price. Which you _know_ is gonna be oats, ‘cause what would I even _do_ with gold? I’m just a funky little 80’s horse remix, so you _gotta_ hand over those spectral oats, dude.”

Taako sighed. “Garyl. I know you’re not gonna like this question. But before you whine, please consider the fact that I’m _not_ in the fucking mood. Now: does it _have_ to be oats?”

“A pound of spectral oats is worth two spectral carrots or one spectral sugar cube! That’s the conversion rate. If you offer a spectral salt lick, I _may_ be willing to negotiate.”

Taako conjured two floating, semi-tangible carrots with a wave of his umbrella, and levitated them over to Garyl, who took a bite out of both at once.

“That’s the stuff!” he whinnied. “Okay, so. Liches. Whatcha wanna know about ‘em?”

“You said, like — like two days ago now — that you used to get spectral oats from liches that _I_ hung out with. Garyl, I need to know: was that true, or were you just guilting me for not spoiling you with enough treats?”

Garyl’s response was rendered completely indecipherable by the fresh bite of carrot in his mouth, part of which splattered across the floor and narrowly missed Taako.

“This is _serious_ , Garyl! I’ve been meaning to ask you about this for a while, but it keeps getting more _serious_.” Taako groaned. “I… I didn’t even _realize_ it, until I was talking to Kravitz last night, but… it’s just… okay, look. _He_ remembers _his_ whole life crystal clear, right down to how many stars you could see from this planet eight hundred and twenty years ago, but…”

He lowered his voice, glancing towards the door. “My past has always just been… _fuzzy_ to me. I never really worried about it, but… I’m just now realizing that this might _not_ be normal. And that if it _isn’t,_ then I don’t know what’s _wrong_ with me.”

Garyl swallowed the last of the carrots. “Yo, your past isn’t fuzzy to _me_. You _really_ don’t remember your lich buddies — your ~~lich _family_~~ _?_ Your ~~literal sister and brother-in-law~~?”

“No, _Garold_ , I _don’t_ remember the sound of getting electrocuted in a fantasy garbage disposal!” Taako rubbed his forehead with increasing vigor, futilely attempting to massage away the sensation of an approaching migraine. “I don’t know _how_ you made that noise with your nasty horse mouth, but it sounded just as bad as the _static_ Lich Barry was speaking when —”

He gasped — and in the ensuing silence, the static kept ringing in his ears, but not as an audible echo. It was coming from within his own head, like a misdirected electric current leaping from neuron to neuron, generated as his mind repeatedly tried and _failed_ to process what he’d just heard… and Taako knew _exactly_ where he’d felt _that_ sensation before.

“Oh, _fuck_.”

He bolted for the door, locked it, then frantically emptied his pockets until he found his Stone of Farspeech, which he powered down and then magically silenced for extra insurance. “Shit. Shit. _Fuck_.”

“Yo, what’s the rush?” Garyl asked. “Didja just remember you owe the unicorn mafia a whole bushel of oatsss?”

“What the hell? No!” Taako cradled Garyl’s snout in his hands, standing on his tiptoes to stare at Garyl in the eyes. “Promise me, promise me right now, _Garyl_ , that you’re not gonna fucking _snitch_.”

Garyl’s expression turned as serious as a binicorn’s expression could turn, given two horns, technicolor eyes, and glittering lashes to work with. “Taako, you gave me life. I’ve _always_ got your back, man.”

“There’s a second voidfish,” Taako blurted out. “And you’re more ghost than horse, I guess, so you’re immune to it, but _I’m_ not. And I — I think I lost something _big_ to it.”

“Huh.” Garyl snorted. “Damn. Geez, _yeah_. That would explain some things about, man, musta been…” He closed his eyes, nostrils twitching. “The last twelve years? That sound right?”

“ _Please_ , Garyl. You — you might know me better than _I_ know me, at this point, so I need you to _tell_ me — who can I trust?”

“I can’t decide that for you, Taako.” Garyl arched his majestic equine neck, as a single tear rolled down his face, and his mullet billowed in a wind that simply shouldn’t have been possible indoors. “Look at what you know to be true in your _heart_ , and begin the journey towards your truth by trusting _yourself_.”

“I’m not here to listen to your poetry, Garyl — I need _names_!” Taako pleaded. “Like, I — I can at least trust Kravitz, right?”

“Look, man, I’m sorry! I could tell you who you _used_ to trust, but if someone took a Voidfish-brand eraser to your chalkboard of a brain, that means someone had to _betray_ you, and I dunno who it was! Kravitz is probably chill, because he seems on the level and you haven’t known him long enough for him to be the culprit — but I’m still juggling like _six_ suspects, and I’ve only got four hooves, man! I’m trying my best to —”

Abruptly, Garyl’s voice died out, and he lowered his eyes. “Well, okay, it would be… _five_ suspects. ‘Cause… ~~Lup definitely went missing before any memories got~~ …”

Taako clapped his hands over his ears. “Can you _try_ not to do that? I’m already on the edge of a migraine without —”

A knock at the door interrupted him, and the next thing he knew, he was brandishing his Umbra Staff — never mind the fact that he’d locked that door just a minute ago, and it had since remained closed.

“Taako?” Lucretia called from the hallway. “Are you alright in there?”

After what _must’ve_ been a suspiciously long pause, “Fine!” was the only word Taako could force out.

“Just dandy!” Garyl added in a terrible Taako impression, and Taako elbowed him in the equine shoulder.

“You’re sure?” The quizzical tilt to Lucretia’s head was downright audible. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

Taako bit back a reply of _golly, I wonder if that’s because I don’t who I am or how much of myself I’m missing!_ but managed something more civil, clamping a hand over Garyl’s mouth as he spoke.

“Just had a late night last night! Took some… personal hours. May or may not be nursing a mild hangover now.”

“Oh, we’ve all been _there_. Merle did mention you were sleeping in.” Lucretia _sounded_ like her suspicion had been sated — unless, of course, she just _wanted_ Taako to think that — because in a much more casual voice that carried far less gravitas, the next thing she asked was: “Do you mind if I come in? I feel like we haven’t talked since Candlenights.”

“No problem!” Taako replied, probably much too quickly. He uttered the word ‘unlock’ under his breath in Elvish, to magically undo his little paranoia-induced security measure before swinging the door open, and hoping Lucretia wouldn’t notice the door _had_ been locked or go on to question why. “Mi casa es tu casa — ‘cause, y’know, mi casa is _technically_ part of your moonbase.”

If Lucretia did notice the unlocking door, she only questioned it silently, because her attention seemed understandably drawn to the binicorn trotting in place in the middle of the dorm.

“Oh, Garyl! Good to see you too.” 

“Haha, yeah!” Garyl chuckled nervously. “Imagine meeting you, here, in a place like this! What are the odds?”

Lucretia lowered herself onto the sofa, glanced at Magnus’s rugged hand-crafted coffee table, and pointed to her feet. “Do you mind?”

Taako shrugged. “Uh… knock yourself out, Luce?”

She kicked off her heeled boots and slung her feet onto the table, laying her staff down in her lap. “Let’s get to the point. I did come here for a particular reason —”

“Oh?” Taako forced a smile. “Do tell.”

“Well, Merle and Leon got into a bit of an argument over — actually, let me start from the beginning. At some point in today’s second game, the kickball went over the edge of the moon, and has probably hit the planet Earth at terminal velocity by now.” Lucretia grimaced. “I hope no one was standing beneath it. Yikes.”

“Home run, baby!” Garyl cheered. Taako simply attempted to nod along.

“Actually, by our rules, it’s a foul with a sizeable penalty. Leon was pitching and Merle was kicking, so naturally they got into a fight over whose fault it was, and Merle threatened — let me see if I remember this all correctly — to ask _you_ , Taako, to ask your ‘new friend the Grim Reaper’ to come up here and ‘reap Leon’s ass’ like said Grim Reaper purportedly once threatened to reap Merle’s _own_ ass. So _I_ was just hoping to get to you first, and stage an intervention to make sure the Bureau’s only artificer doesn’t take a one way trip to the heavens above — not to mention, maybe, ask if you had _any_ idea what the hell Merle was talking about?”

“Well, bold statement saying Leon would go to heaven, first of all. Pretty sure he’d head the way of the plummeting kickball and smash through the planet’s crust. Second of all, um, I _guess_ you could say I know the Grim Reaper? Look, we haven’t been seeing each other for very long, but I think we both feel a connection —”

“Oh! Well, good for you! Don’t get me wrong, that’s fucking _wild_ if you mean it seriously rather than as a goof, but I’m still happy for you!”

“Not a goof. That _is_ the whole story there, though. I’m dating the Grim Reaper, what more is there to say?” Taako grinned from ear to ear, and it felt _slightly_ more sincere than every other smile he’d put on in this disaster of a conversation. “But as a… as an aside… uh, Garyl, do you remember those… six, no, _five_ people you mentioned to me, just before Lucretia showed up?”

Garyl blinked at him with a downright hostility, as if to say _You’re circling back to this topic NOW?_

“Your, um, suspect list?” Taako clarified. “Of… people on the moon most likely to give you oats? I guess it was more like a power ranking, actually, let’s _definitely_ call it a power ranking instead of a suspect list — but my point is, um, was the ‘Director’ here on it?”

“Yee-esssss,” Garyl replied slowly, still giving Taako the evil eye. “You know what I always say about Lucretia: she… she totes got the oats!”

“Okay!” Taako replied, knuckles turning white as he gripped the handle of the Umbra Staff. “Thanks! For letting me know! About those oat facts!”

“Um,” said Lucretia, which was probably the best reaction that Taako could’ve reasonably hoped for. “I… think I misplaced my oats today. Also, maybe my supply of oats for this entire year?” She reached for her boots. “Is this a hint that I should go back to refereeing kickball?”

“Yes!” Taako blurted out. “Oh, I mean, _no_ , it’s not — I mean, you _can_ leave! But you _don’t_ have to. We don’t _mind_ you being here!”

“We don’t _not_ want you to leave but we also don’t _not_ not not want you to leave,” Garyl added, as if it were a verbal Fantasy Rosetta Stone that would clarify and explain all of Taako’s anxious floundering. “Because _we_ trust and cherish _you_. And oats! _Mostly_ oats.”

Lucretia slipped her boots back on, then rose from her seat in a regal manner that _probably_ wasn’t intended to intimidate the living daylights out of Taako. “No, you have a point. I should go make sure our secret society doesn’t fracture into warring kickball factions — but I’ll be back to chat more, don’t worry. Hopefully on a day you’re feeling better, Taako.”

She winked at Garyl as she turned to leave. “And I’ll try and remember to bring oats. Gotta move up in those power rankings.”

“It was actually more like a tier list!” Garyl called as she closed the door. When Taako magically locked it behind her, Garyl began pacing around the dorm, his tail swishing with enough force to knock several paintings and decorative vases onto the floor.

“Taako! She _never_ has oats and she knows it! She’s onto us!”

“Yeah, you think?” Taako sunk into the couch Lucretia had vacated, burying his head in his hands. “I _need_ backup who can hear through the static, before she puts it together and comes back to throw me in the brig. I’m calling Kravitz.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do that. I’ll keep working on the tier list.” As Taako began to reboot his Stone, Garyl accelerated his nervous pacing to a nervous trot.

“Garyl, if this turns into a canter, I swear to gods —” Taako muttered, tapping the Stone’s unresponsive screen with a shaky thumb.

“Sorry.” Garyl slowed to a halt. “Hmm. You trust Davenport more, less, or the same as Lucretia?”

“What, you think he just _pretends_ he can only say his own name to disguise his role as the evil mastermind?” Taako’s stomach churned. “Shit. You might be onto something. Put him below Lucretia on the tier list. Or above? I dunno how —”

“Wait, I’m not following you, man. Since _when_ can Dav can only say his own name?”

Taako groaned. “I’m gonna take a wild guess and say since _twelve fucking years_ ago — alright, finally! Here we go!” His Stone of Farspeech flickered to life, and he navigated to Kravitz’s contact page as quickly as his trembling fingers allowed.

When he hit _Call_ , an eerie silence filled the dorm as he and Garyl listened to one, two, three, four short rings — then, a beep, and a horrendous pre-recorded Cockney accent.

_Hullo, greetings, and top o’ the morning! You’ve successfully reached the desk of Kravitz, Emissary of Her Majesty the Raven Queen, but I’m away right now, so if you have a zombie outbreak to report, press 1. If you wish to subscribe to our mailing list of anti-necromancy resources, press 2. If you’re dead and in need of an escort to the Astral Plane, press 3. If you just wanted to have a friendly chat, please leave a message after the caw, and I’ll get back to you once I’m able._

A raven cawed, and Taako started talking:

“Hey, babe, it’s me! Your boy. Um, don’t let me take you away from saving the world from necromancers or anything important like that… but if you’re _not_ busy, I could _really_ use your help, so if you could swing by the moonbase, and — and maybe not tell anyone you’re coming here or that you’re coming to see me — then that would be just swell! Everything’s cool, nothing’s wrong — well, no, you’re a perceptive guy, you can _definitely_ tell something’s wrong — but I’m sure you and me, and Garyl, and maybe Angus will be able to figure it out, no problem! Except, now that I think about it, maybe _not_ Angus, because I’ve put him in enough danger to solve my own problems already — but uh, thanks in advance, love you, see you soon, bye!”

Then he dropped his Stone, grabbed the nearest couch pillow, and screamed into it.

“Hey, hey, relaaax,” Garyl told him. “You heard him — he’ll get back to you soon.”

“Yeah. I know.” Taako took a deep breath, letting the pillow fall to the ground. “He’s just a busy guy, with an important job. He’ll be here as soon as he can…”

Garyl nodded sagely. “And you’d do the same, for him, because that’s love. Unless…”

Taako’s heart skipped a beat. “Unless?”

“Unless someone on the lower end of the trust tier list _knows_ about his connection to you, and to keep hiding the truth, they capture him before he can get here!” Garyl sniffed. “Just like the unicorn mafia captured my dear ol’ uncle…”

Taako pressed the _Call_ button again, and when he was once again directed to voicemail, he picked the pillow back up and resumed screaming.

“Hey, take it easyyy, man. It’s not like they can _kill_ him,” Garyl soothed. “And b’sides, haven’t you got that… that whatsit-called, that magic arrow? You can still check in on him that way, even if the bad guys stole his Stone!”

“Right!” Taako sprung up from the couch, and bolted towards the quiver of arrows that Magnus had casually slung onto the doorknob of his room. “I mean, I’m _sure_ his phone didn’t even get taken from him — he’s eight and a half centuries old, for crying out loud! He probably just misplaced it, or accidentally put it on silent, or… gee, we really don’t have a lot of traditional surfaces to jab arrows into here, do we?”

He glanced around the dorm, gaze finally landing on Magnus’s homemade coffee table. “I’ll just… wedge it in one of the seams in the wood, so it definitely _won’t_ be noticeable, right?”

“You asking me? I’m apparently an _amnesia-immune ghost horse_ , man — what makes ya think I’d ever want or attempt to understand woodworking?”

“Guess you’ve never attempted to understand a rhetorical question, either,” Taako muttered as he crouched on the ground. Clasping the arrow between two hands, he took a deep breath, then plunged it into the coffee table. “Kravitz? I could really use your help, I won’t lie, but — but mostly, I’m worried and just checking in to make sure you’re _okay_ —”

For a sliver of a second, everything seemed to proceed as it should, with an electric blue glow flickering to life inside the arrowhead — and then, it _exploded,_ spitting out fragments of crystal and tongues of vicious astral fire. Taako reflexively turned his head and dropped to the floor, but still felt something sharp and burning prick into his biceps like a red-hot needle, and he held his breath until the sound of shattering crystal halted and the sound of burning wood faded to a faint sizzling.

“So, uh…” Garyl slowly backed away from Magnus’s poor table, which was already more ‘smoldering pile of ash and sapphire dust’ than it was furniture. “This ever happen before?”

“No,” Taako whispered. He raised a hand to touch the stinging point on his arm, and pulled away with a droplet of blood and a tiny pointed crystal both resting atop his index fingertip. “ _Never_ —”

“Okay, cool, that narrows down the possibilities,” Garyl concluded. “Either he’s _really_ busy, or we’re _really_ fucked.”

This time, Taako didn’t even bother to grab a pillow before he started screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, comments/[reblogs](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/633084755523600384/fear-the-reaper-a-lot-actually-chapter-7) welcomed as always! 
> 
> next chapter: Ghost Fight (or in other words, we get to see what Kravitz has been up to in the meantime)


	8. Duel to the Undeath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why has Kravitz gone unresponsive on all channels? What have Barry and Noelle been planning? Who, if anyone, is left on Taako’s list of people to be trusted? Find out the answers to all these questions and more, right now on _Fear The Reaper A Lot, Actually!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (chanting) ghost fight ghost fight ghost fight

Kravitz landed ankle-deep in an underground lake, scarcely twenty feet away from the red-robed figure on the shore. Barry’s head was turned, and he gave no sign of noticing Kravitz’s arrival, but it was clear where his focus was directed — a small mob of six freshly animated undead, occupying the full spectrum between zombie and skeleton.

Wasting no time, Kravitz threw himself at the lich, scythe blazing to life with a silent radiance.

Barry had _really_ snapped, if he was out here raising the dead without any wards to hide himself. Even without the summons, this stunt could’ve appeared as a beacon on Kravitz’s radar at any moment, and that wasn’t at _all_ like the Barry he’d known —

Heeding to his nagging suspicions, Kravitz slowed his pace — but Barry _still_ didn’t move, and Kravitz felt his reluctant scythe slice through illusory red cloth, then _tangible_ rotting flesh and brittle bone. 

_Fuck._

Leaping back from the disguised zombie, he decorporealized as fast as he could — just in time to withstand a light that felt blinding even to his undead senses, burning even to his formless soul. When the sunbursts faded and he returned to his reaper form, dazed, he barely glimpsed a robotic silhouette duck behind a rock formation on the other side of the lake, revealed only by her still-glowing cannon arm.

“Noelle, you _backstabber_!” Waves of magical force whipped off Kravitz’s scythe, hurtling across the cave and towards her hiding place. “I was _rooting_ for you —”

Jagged spires of ice burst out from the lake, intact for less than a second before intercepting the force wave, and the two spells neutralized each other with an explosion of roaring wind and frozen shrapnel. Before Kravitz could attack again, a skeleton’s clawlike fingers dug deep into his right shoulder, and he launched himself into the air with a flick of his cloak to shake the attacker loose.

But before he could reach his intended altitude, a few yards short of the stalactite-dotted ceiling, _something_ pulled him to a stop — not a bony hand at his shoulder this time, but a fuzzy _constricting_ sensation around his scythe-bearing arm. When he looked down, he saw a web of tangled red threads, impossibly thin yet ensnaring him from wrist to mid-biceps — and every single one of them led back to Barry Bluejeans.

When Kravitz saw the _real_ Barry, floating a few feet above the undead horde on the lake’s near shore, he couldn’t believe he’d fallen for the disguised zombie. This Barry was glowing with power, with desperation, with _determination_ — but his form remained as composed and his expression as unreadable as ever. The only exception was his own right arm, around which his robe had unravelled up to the elbow — not just exposing smoke-black bones, but freeing the threads of that sleeve to go on the offensive, humming with an intensity that made Kravitz’s own bones shake as he tried, unsuccessfully, to decorporealize and escape.

He’d never seen anything like it before — but then again, he’d also never seen Barry come after _him_ , instead of the inverse, and wasn’t that an _equally_ urgent and terrifying mystery to unravel?

“Why, Barry?!” Kravitz shouted. “Why _now_?!”

Barry narrowed his eyes, and with a flick of a spectral hand, hurtled Kravitz down towards the rocky shore. Channeling another force blast through his free limbs, Kravitz flung himself to the right, but his downward momentum stayed with him, and he plunged into the lake with enough momentum that he hit the bottom with a sickening crunch. 

_**You**_ **can give up any time.** Barry’s voice echoed inside his head as electricity coursed through the threads, sending both Kravitz’s mind and body reeling. **But _I_ never will.**

**__**_I’m sure you’re right that you won’t give up,_ Kravitz thought back with all the determination he could muster, still submerged in the lake, _but like it or not, that’s one thing we’ve got in common._

Fighting through what must’ve been a potent paralysis spell, he summoned his scythe into his unrestricted hand and swung it at the threads, _expecting_ to slice cleanly through most of them — but his blade was met with a fierce resistance, and though sparks of red and blue magic exploded from the point of contact, he didn’t feel a single thread snap.

He _did_ feel Barry recoil, letting out a psychic scream that would’ve haunted a mortal for months, and drawing the threads back into his robe to let Kravitz free — which would be cause for celebration, if only it wasn’t supposed to be _impossible_. No part of a lich’s essence should withstand a reaper’s most sacred weapon — it was simply the way the world worked, the way the world was _supposed_ to work.

Barry was stunned and convulsing, true — but the undead that Kravitz knew didn’t go through _death throes_ , either, and Kravitz could only assume that the being he _once_ would’ve called a lich was on the verge of recollecting himself.

_What is Barry_ made _of? What_ is _he, and what_ happens _if I try to reap a whole robe’s worth of those threads?_ Can _I even reap him? Do I have_ any _chance of winning this fight?_

“Mister Bluejeans!” Noelle shouted from behind some stalagmite, but _she_ was rapidly descending on the list of Kravitz’s top concerns.

As he burst to the surface, seeing Barry regain his composure, Kravitz began to chant as quickly as he could, offering a prayer to the Raven Queen and infusing the water of the lake with her power. When Barry’s eyes — gleaming white within a faint halo of blue — fixated on him again, Kravitz was ready, and he tore open a rift from the bottom of the lake to a point just above Barry’s head.

The ensuing deluge passed straight through Barry’s lich form with the telltale _hiss_ of celestial magic burning away at an undead soul, and Kravitz allowed himself a relieved grin as Barry vanished into the waterfall. No matter how resistant Barry was to his scythe, there were _always_ at least a few tricks that could hurt any lich under Faerun’s sun —

Then the crimson silhouette within the waterfall raised a hand, and the sapphire-blue edges of Kravitz’s portal turned an ashen gray as the rift shriveled and closed with a _pop_. Barry emerged from the water with hardly a shudder, wisps of magical steam rising off a red robe that was otherwise no worse for wear. 

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Barry, sounding genuinely apologetic, “but I spent the last few cycles building up an immunity to holy water.”

He extended his hands, firing a bolt of necrotic energy from each of his ten fingertips, but Kravitz twirled his scythe with a flick of his hand, reforming it as a shield emblazoned with swooping raven wings. Each bolt ricocheted off it in a different direction, and Barry clenched his hands into fists, channeling the spell’s residual energy into two spheres of consolidated dark magic. He hurled them in mirror-image arcs, both circling back towards Kravitz from behind —

With another flick of Kravitz’s wrist, his shield became two identical lightweight scythes, each intercepting a different sphere before the whirlwind of blades propelled Kravitz towards the ceiling, equal with Barry’s altitude. Expecting Barry to flee, but not about to risk an opening going to waste, Kravitz charged — but Barry snapped his fingers, and two discarded femurs from the bottom of the lake flew to his side, transforming into a pair of crimson scimitars and crossing to catch the blade of Kravitz’s first scythe. 

The blow from the second scythe was more precise, and sent the scimitars hurtling across the cave, but Barry clapped his hands together, and they flew back to his defense, exchanging a flurry of increasingly rapid blows with Kravitz. One of them grazed the cuff of his jacket, and as he dove out of the way, he deliberately bashed his sapphire blades together, releasing a sunburst of blue light — and more importantly, a wave of thunderous force to fracture the scimitars, which Kravitz shattered with one final swing of his scythe.

He returned his focus to Barry himself, and realized — too late — that a single red thread of his sleeve had once again unraveled. Kravitz preemptively turned skeletal, surrounding himself with ghostly flames he hoped would make Barry think twice about trying to restrain him — but instead, Barry swung the stray thread towards the ceiling, where it cleaved through stalactites like a red-hot wire through butter, and a barrage of newly-freed spears rained down on Kravitz.

Only one struck him — barely bruising his shoulder in the fraction of a second before he decorporealized, and his soul-light possessed the stalactite itself. Barry summoned two more elongated bones to his side, but before he could transform them into scimitars, Kravitz hurtled his new form at them with such force that they crashed into the damp cave wall, shattering both the bones and stalactite while releasing Kravitz’s soul.

“It’s time to explain yourself!” Kravitz shouted, rematerializing and conjuring a dual-bladed scythe. _Explain your lichdom, the Grand Relics, Taako’s unexplained deaths and missing memories —_

With both hands, he spun the scythe like a baton, generating a vortex of blue lightning drawn from the essence of the Astral Plane itself. “This ends NOW!”

Undaunted, Barry shrugged. “Y’know, I did _try_ to warn you the apocalypse was imminent,” he said nonchalantly, and melted into the shadows cast upon the wall.

The lightning pulverized stalactites across the cave, rendering even its darkest corners in brilliant blue light, but Barry had retreated too far into the earth for the magic to touch him — and in a way, it was almost _reassuring,_ if only because the rest of this encounter had felt so alien.

_This_ was the Barry that Kravitz knew, the Barry that would casually say something ominous before disengaging and vanishing off the map for the next three to eight months — but the moment of reassurance didn’t last long, because Barry reappeared on the lakeshore with his undead minions a moment later, and _no,_ Kravitz was _not_ falling for _that_ again. 

His scythe transformed into a longbow, a sapphire arrow already nocked. When he let it fly, it pierced the illusory red robe without a sound, and Barry’s deception vanished with a puff of smoke.

_Where did you_ really _go, Bluejeans?_

He glimpsed _some_ kind of shadow at the bottom of the lake, but before he could identify it, the surface froze over — and then, with a mighty creak, it _rose_ , first as rapid-fire spears that Kravitz dodged with ease, but then as staggered subsections that formed a staircase — or as the terrestrial skeletons and zombies saw it, a perfect opportunity to charge at Kravitz.

The three who lead the assault fell in a volley of just as many arrows, but before the rest could arrive, Kravitz swung his bow around himself in an arc, transforming it back into a scythe just in time to strike the staircase with maximum force and shatter the ice. The remaining undead plummeted into the lake of still-blessed water, dissolving in a flash of light and a plume of steam.

“Not as resilient as your creator, eh?” Kravitz quipped, but not quite loud enough to miss the crackle of electricity behind him, and he somersaulted in midair to evade a crimson lightning bolt. Undeterred, Barry fired again, then a third time with two bolts at once, but Kravitz had no trouble dodging — though he realized, not a moment too soon, that Barry’s otherwise ineffective spells were driving him backwards and down, towards the rocky shore where Barry had raised the dead.

_Not so fast,_ Kravitz thought, and plunged his scythe into the wall. Halfway across the cave, a massive blue crystal burst out from among the stalactites, missing Barry by a hair — but as he absconded, more sapphires tore through the cave ceiling, cutting him off at every angle until he was trapped in a cage of jagged crystalline fangs. Kravitz trembled from the exertion, bones rattling beneath his skin, but he didn’t have to maintain the spell for long — because through the translucent sapphires, he saw Barry’s silhouette clap two lightning-wreathed hands together, and an explosion of thunder pulverized every crystal in the cave. Kravitz morphed his scythe into a shield just in time to deflect the brunt of it, but the sheer force sent him flying backwards, and he landed on his feet on the lakeshore, exhausted but alert.

“I really am sorry, Kravitz. You seem like a decent guy.” Barry’s words echoed across the cave, making it impossible to tell if the slight distortion was coming from his own voice or simply the acoustics. “I’d always hoped that — that _somehow_ , it wouldn’t turn out like this —”

“Oh, that’s _real_ rich coming from _you,_ Barry J. ‘created the Animus Bell and picked a fight with the Grim Reaper’ Bluejeans,” Kravitz retorted, switching his shield back into a scythe with none of the usual dramatic flourish. “You’re talking like my fate is sealed, but you haven’t won yet —”

Kravitz paused — because for the first time in twelve years of hunting Barry Bluejeans and ten years of knowing him, he could _perfectly_ read the expression on Barry’s cowled semblance of a face. It was _triumph,_ clear as day, and colored mainly by relief… 

But not without an edge to it, a telltale hint of _smugness_. 

“No, I think I _have_ won,” Barry said. “Remember — you’re still outnumbered.”

A bolt of scorching light lanced down from above, rupturing the ground before Kravitz’s feet with all the red-hot fury of a meteor impact. He flung himself backwards, _trying_ to escape the brunt of the attack — but the explosion hurtled him to the very back of the cave, where his spine met the cold limestone wall at high velocity, and he toppled to the ground before he could get his bearings.

“No,” he whispered. “No, I’m _not_ outnumbered.” His ears rang, and lights danced across all but the most peripheral corners of his vision, but he still pulled himself to his feet, bracing himself against the wall. “I am the Raven Queen’s champion, and she will _not_ let you escape me again —”

He extended an arm, to summon back the scythe he’d lost his grip on… 

But for the first ever time, after more than eight centuries in the Queen’s undead flock, his scythe didn’t heed his call. 

He could _see_ it on the ground, barely ten feet away and undamaged as far as he could tell. But it didn’t move an inch, much less spring back into his hand — and only then, for the first time since arriving in the cave, did Kravitz notice the dark gray runes carved all around him, separating him from his weapon.

A trap, which had been Barry’s endgame all along. A trap, which Kravitz had flung himself right into. 

Noelle floated to ground-level, hovering next to Barry and exchanging a few words that Kravitz’s ears still rang too much to hear. Making the most of their distraction, Kravitz lunged for his scythe with nothing to lose — but a shimmering, opalescent barrier sprung up from the runes, and he bounced off of it, shoulder first.

Barry glanced at him, and just _sighed_ — which manifested, for a breathless entity made up of pure magic, as something more like a low electric crackle. “ _This_ was how I didn’t want it turn out, Kravitz.”

Kravitz ignored him, closing his eyes and raising his fingers to his temples. _My Queen, I’m outmatched. I beseech you —_

He ceased his prayer, his eyes flying open. It was wrong, _all_ wrong, the terrifying gut-churning kind of wrong — and worst of all, he knew exactly _why_.

No electric blue buzz had reached him when he’d prayed to his goddess. It would be one thing if the Raven Queen hadn’t replied, but Kravitz hadn’t even been able to _open_ a channel of communication in the first place.

And his scythe, he now realized, was not damaged nor unresponsive. He simply no longer had the ability to summon it — because The Raven Queen, and all the powers she’d graced him with, were completely cut off by Barry’s spell. 

For the first time in countless lifetimes, Kravitz was alone.

***

Taako jumped when he heard the second knock of the day, expecting a barrage of accusations from the Director to follow — but it was Angus’s voice, not Lucretia’s, that called out to him a moment later.

“Sir? Do you mind if I come in? There’s something I need to talk to you about!”

Taako pressed his ear to the door. He couldn’t hear anyone else in the hallway, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. “Talk about _what,_ Agnes?”

“Oh, uh… I’d rather not say while I’m standing out here. It’s kinda personal…” Angus lowered his voice. “And you know the drill, prying eyes and ears.”

Taako’s heart skipped a beat — because Angus McDonald, light of his life and the closest thing to a son he could imagine ever having, knowing information too dangerous to speak out loud — was scarier than _any_ apocalyptic nightmares or even malfunctioning arrows.

Pointing his Umbra Staff at the door and tapping his forehead, Taako extended his sense of sight outside, verifying that the hallway was deserted — aside, of course, from one innocent-looking boy detective. With that information confirmed, he cracked the door open and grabbed Angus by the vest, yanking him inside before Angus could even get a protest in edgewise.

“You bring your Stone of Farspeech?” Taako asked, fidgeting with locks both magical and arcane. “Power it down, _right_ now.”

“But — but I’m waiting for a text back from —”

Taako snapped his fingers, silencing the Stone in Angus’s pocket. “Well, suck it up and wait a little longer, kid, because the Director’s listened in on me through those things before and I’m sure she’ll do it again — so how’s _that_ for prying ears? I’m about to be in enough trouble as is, I can’t let _you_ get implicated too —”

Angus glanced around the room, gaze lingering on the ruins of the coffee table and the ashen footprints tread across the rug. “Sir, are you… okay? You’re acting like Caleb Cleveland whenever a case-changing discovery sends him spiraling into paranoia —”

“I — okay, look. The day got off to a rough start, but — but you worry _way_ too much about me, kid.” How had Taako _already_ fucked up this badly, confirming there was a conspiracy afoot and getting the kid _invested?_ He should’ve just begged Angus to stay quiet, to stay _away_ from him. 

“I — I just _can’t_ tell you what’s happening, Angus, for your own good! I shouldn’t have even let you _in_ here in the first place, when _I_ don’t know what’s going on or how to protect —”

With a hug, Angus knocked the wind out of Taako’s lungs and the wizard hat off of his head. “Sir, I found something big too! I didn’t know how to face it alone, but I couldn’t find Noelle, and Kravitz hasn’t texted me back —”

He smiled. “And I came to _you,_ because I’m _sure_ we can figure this out together. You just have to trust —”

“I trust you implicitly, Ango. You know this,” Taako blurted out. “I trust you with my life.

“I suspected as much, though it’s nice to hear you say it.” Angus met his eyes. “But I meant that you have to trust yourself with _mine_.”

Taako closed his eyes, and saw Glamour Springs. _Forty people, fatally poisoned._

“I need to know what you know, sir. It might put me in danger — but there’s no one else I’d rather have watching my back. I’ll be okay, I really will — I believe in us!”

_Phandalin. Eight-hundred and fifty people, all incinerated._

“And if it helps, sir… I trust you. Both implicitly and rationally.”

_The return to Wave Echo Cave in search of liches. Angus imperiled, but alive._

Taako wasn’t sure when he’d first started hugging Angus back, but he hugged a little tighter, just for good measure. “I just don’t want to put any more pressure on you than I already have, little guy. Your job’s hard work, and I keep making it harder —”

“I know my limits better now. Kravitz helped me with that,” Angus assured him. “I’ll tell you if it ever gets to be too much, I promise.”

“Yeah, you better.” Taako took a deep breath, then another, coming a little closer to spilling the truth with each inhale. “So, I guess… I’d better tell you about the second Voidfish.”

“I knew it!” Angus exclaimed, but lowered his voice as he went on, seeing Taako flinch. “I _knew_ the Bureau wasn’t telling us everything! How did _you_ figure it out?”

“Garyl helped — he’s immune, apparently,” Taako whispered. “He was making me paranoid, so I unsummoned him — but earlier today, he said I lost a bunch of my memories twelve years ago, and it might’ve all been Lucretia’s master plan —”

“Twelve years?” Angus echoed. “Kravitz said your bounties showed up twelve years ago, at the same time as Barry and Lup — and believe it or not, also _the Director and Davenport,_ of all people!”

Taako collapsed onto the couch, for what felt like the tenth time that morning. “I don’t think my brain can physically unpack _all_ of this, so I’m just gonna ask — _when_ did Kravitz say this? Have you talked to him recently?”

“This was just earlier this morning! He was the person I was expecting to text me back, actually — but did something happen?”

Taako stomach dropped. “Did — did he tell you anything that showed up as static?”

“He did! Something about your bounties and the relics that I just couldn’t grasp! That was how I figured out there was another —”

“Shit,” Taako muttered. “I hate to break it to you, Angus, but our little rogue detective bureau’s first order of business might be figuring out what the _hell_ happened to Kravitz.”

Angus gasped. “You think some necromancers captured him? Or — or the Director?”

“I don’t _know!_ Maybe both — maybe Lucretia _is_ the evil necromancer behind all of this! Or maybe it’s Davenport, or it’s Barry after all, or whoever the _hell_ Lup is —”

His umbrella unfurled in his lap, its handle swinging up to hit him in the chin before it tumbled to the ground. “Hey, learn to read the room! You think I have _time_ to deal with you causing problems on purpose right now?!”

Angus pursed his lips. “Where did you get that Umbra Staff anyway? Seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Oh, you don’t know the _half_ of the trouble this thing has given me, Ango. I found it on the original Wave Echo Cave trip — kinda near the Relic, actually. Former owner was just a skeleton in a… oh _shit,_ that’s right. A skeleton in a _fucking_ red robe.”

Angus just _stared_ at him, dumbfounded, for ten full seconds before he pulled out his notebook and jotted the information down. “You and the other Reclaimers are _terrible_ at passing on relevant information, you know that?”

“In my defense, I have severe undiagnosed memory loss!” Taako shot back. “And it’s been, like, eight months? Ten? See, I can’t even remember how _long_ it’s been!”

“Wait. Hang on.” Angus sat down his notepad and closed his eyes. “If the Red Robes made the Grand Relics… you told me that Barry has mentioned Lup by name, correct?”

Taako nodded, then upon realizing Angus’s eyes were still closed, he spoke up. “Yeah.”

“So we can reasonably assume Lup’s a Red Robe, too. She’s been missing for ten years, last seen in Wave Echo Cave — and I would hazard a guess, _specifically_ in the part of the cave that housed the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet. The part of the cave where you found your Umbra Staff.”

“And the worst times the umbrella has ever malfunctioned,” Taako realized aloud, heart pounding, “were when either Kravitz or I was about to hurt _Barry_.”

“Your staff doesn’t just absorb arcane foci, does it?” Angus gasped. “It absorbed an entire _lich_. We thought we’d never find Lup — but she’s been under our noses all along.”

***

“Barry, _how?_ How did you _do_ this?”

Noelle was still looking at Kravitz, but Barry had turned away, seemingly with no purpose in mind besides cultivating a sullen appearance.

“Took some inspiration from an entity I already knew could cut off planes from each other, and gods from their emissaries,” he muttered after a few seconds. “Not too proud of it, but you forced my hand.”

There was the confirmation Kravitz had been looking for, yet dreading — because Kravitz needed a font of magic, needed the _Raven Queen,_ not just to fight but to exist in any capacity. His soul would burn out, drained by the exertion of maintaining physical form, without a direct line to either her or her dominion of the Astral Plane — gods, his soul should’ve burnt out _already,_ within _seconds_ of being sealed in. 

“No, I mean — how am I still _here,_ Barry?” _How am I still half-alive?_

“Arcane core buried a few feet beneath you.” Barry’s voice was practically monotone, and the concerned frown on Noelle’s display didn’t escape Kravitz’s notice. “Should fuel your soul at least until the end of the world. Maybe longer.”

He shuddered, though he kept it together — and unlikely as he was to admit it, even _Kravitz_ was starting to feel a little worried for the lich who’d just spared his not-quite-life.

“You could’ve killed me like this at any point,” he pointed out. “During _any_ of those ten years. Why didn’t you _,_ if I’ve been such an impediment to your master plan —”

Barry whirled around, teleporting to a spot right outside the barrier with a clap of thunder and a spray of sparks. “You think this was a type of magic I _wanted_ to mess with? You think I did this for _my own_ sake?! I only did this so _you_ wouldn’t kill my _family!_ ”

He and Kravitz stood face to face-shaped void — and there was something _unsteady_ about that void and the lights inside, something telling Kravitz that if Barry had a true face at the moment, his expression would’ve just _crumpled_. 

“Your family,” Kravitz echoed. “The other Red Robes. Magnus, Merle, and… Taako.”

“I’d do this _all_ again to protect them,” Barry rasped. “No matter how convinced you are that you’re in the right, I _can’t_ let you reap them —”

“I’m not _going_ to reap them!” Kravitz blurted out, and the threads of Barry’s robe froze in place. 

“ _What?!_ ”

Kravitz raised his hand. “I swear I won’t! On my oath to the Raven Queen!”

Barry went not just perfectly still, but utterly silent, until Noelle spoke up. “Why not?!”

“We worked out a deal! I _assumed_ you heard —” Before Kravitz knew it, he was laughing, even well aware that it made the _lich_ in the room look like the sane one by comparison. “ _Gods,_ Barry. I really thought you were some kind of omniscient memory-wiping mastermind, leading a massive conspiracy with informants everywhere — but you didn’t even know I was letting the Reclaimers go! You’re just a family man who _happens_ to be undead and a colossal pain in my ass! I can’t _believe_ this!”

“What — what do you know about the memory wiping?” Barry finally spoke up, softer than Kravitz had ever heard him. “About the Voidfish?”

“Apparently not enough,” Kravitz admitted, lowering himself onto the floor of the cave and crossing his legs. “But… do you think could you tell me about it?” 

Barry just stared at him for a few seconds, eventually glancing at Noelle, as if to check that she was just as dumfounded as he was. Then he turned back to Kravitz, and with a shrug, replied: “…I guess?”

Kravitz drummed his fingers on the ground — absorbing and channeling a trace of the arcane core’s aura, all while hoping Barry interpreted it as an absentminded tic, not one of deep and deliberate concentration. “If it’s not too much of a tangent, then literally _any_ information on the apocalypse besides ‘it’s imminent’ would be nice.”

“Well, then,” Barry said slowly, “I guess I should start at the beginning. I wasn’t always a lich — I guess that was obvious, ‘cause that’s just how liches work — but I also wasn’t always a necromancer. I was totally fascinated with death, don’t get me wrong, and sometimes I _dabbled_ in true necromancy against my better judgement, but it was… about as discouraged in my homeworld as it was here. So instead, I dedicated my life to studying interplanar travel.”

“Your _homeworld_ ,” Kravitz repeated, “which is… _different_ from the Raven Queen’s domain? Different from this planar system?!”

“Probably shoulda led with that, huh?” Barry muttered. “Yeah, I’m technically an alien, and for a long time, I worked for an alien space agency. We searched for signs of life, or even mere _existence,_ outside our own planar system, but we kept hitting dead ends — until a light we _almost_ mistook for a meteor fell from the sky, and changed everything. We called it the Light of Creation, and it…”

He sighed. “You could say it _enthralled_ us. It illuminated these underlying mechanisms of not just magic, but broadly speaking, _interactions_ — between things, between worlds, between _people_. We called them bonds, and with the way we were studying them so single-mindedly, it didn’t even take us a year to build a spaceship that could _run_ on the things. Seven of us flew that ship off the material plane on her maiden voyage, and — well, you can read all our names straight from your book of bounties. Our captain was Davenport, and Lucretia was our chronicler, while Merle was the biologist, and Magnus — oh, Magnus was the best security system that a team of five wizards and a cleric could wish for. I was chief science officer, of course, and… Taako and Lup, the _twins_ , were the arcanists.”

“Oh my gods,” Kravitz whispered. “Taako — I had Taako _hunting_ Lup. He thought his life _depended_ on —”

“He didn’t know.” Barry shuddered, red smoke escaping from his mouth as he spoke. “Neither of you did.”

Faced with any other lich, Kravitz would’ve braced himself for a breakdown and ensuing fallout, but today, he stayed seated to watch as calmly as he could — and sure enough, the smoke faded to a few harmless wisps as Barry went on.

“Sorry, I — I’m getting ahead of myself. The mission, the Starblaster mission, it was only supposed to last two months. But in our obsession with the Light, with the spaceship it made possible, we missed… _warning signs_ leading up to our departure. Storm clouds hanging overhead, colors losing their luster, hell, even _eyes_ in the sky and in the Ethereal Plane. When the seven of us took flight, we thought we were explorers — but in the blink of an eye, we became _refugees_ , because right after we took flight, the Hunger descended on our world and devoured it whole.”

He must’ve noticed a shell-shocked expression on Kravitz’s face, because he went on: “Yeah, it’s a _lot_ , even when you’ve had decades to process it. We fled to another planar system, and the Light of Creation followed us there — but so did the Hunger, and a year after arriving, it consumed yet another world without mercy. Magnus _died_ fighting it, but I’m sure you see where this is going — when we materialized in the next planar system, he was as good as new, and the cycle repeated. We figured out that as long as _one_ of us escaped the Hunger on the ship, anyone who died that year would return to life, and that if we could escape with the Light, the Hunger would only damage the plane instead of consuming it — but recovering the Light was about as consistent as rolling a pair of dice you hadn’t rigged, and the Hunger kept gaining on us.”

“And this,” Kravitz assumed, “was when you started practicing necromancy?”

“Yeah. I guess I could play it off as, I dunno, something I studied to understand how we kept getting revived every year, but… I’m not gonna lie to you. I was calling myself a necromancer by the third cycle because it was dangerous, and we _needed_ dangerous magic to stand a chance against the Hunger.” A fondness crept into Barry’s voice, and Kravitz watched a small tear in his robe sew itself back together. “Lup and I didn’t become liches until decades later — just like we took our time with most things, I guess — and that was for power, too. But there weren’t any blood sacrifices, or any of that traditional ‘store your soul in an artifact of dark magic’ stuff — we powered our lich forms with bonds, the same things that powered our spaceship. We did it with the help of our family, to _protect_ our family, and I’d do it all again. And Lup… I know she’d feel the same, if she were here.”

“Were you close? You and Lup, I mean?”

The lights of Barry’s not-quite-face blinked. “Gotta say, bud, after everything I just told you, that is _not_ the question I thought you’d have for me. But… yeah, you could say that. We were in love for the better part of a century, and if you’ve ever seen me… _not_ fall apart when I should have, it was because I was thinking of her. Reminding myself that if I gave up, then everything we’d worked for would be the next to come undone, and even worse, I’d — I’d never have a chance to see her again.”

“You don’t know where she is either,” Kravitz realized, and only noticed he’d spoken out loud when he saw Barry shrink backwards and wrap his arms around his chest, his robe folding in on itself like red light drawn towards a spluttering black hole.

“Wow, Kravitz,” Noelle spoke up, digitized voice dripping with sarcasm as she glared at him. “Way to not ask sensitive questions to the guy you _just_ learned was powered by emotions —”

“I’m sorry!” Kravitz exclaimed, and he honestly meant it. “I wasn’t thinking —”

“No, I’ll be alright,” Barry insisted, with a confidence that suggested he’d survived worse breakdowns. No longer radiating lightning nor anguish, he floated right up to the opalescent barrier, even resting a hand on it. “You know, the Hunger’s kinda like this spell I used to trap you, ‘cept on steroids. It cuts off _all_ the planes in a system before devouring them, but always goes for the Celestial Plane first, rendering the bonds between god and emissary unusable — and it’s done that so many times, Kravitz, it’s consumed _so_ many deities and added them to its number. It’s _impossible_ to defeat that kind of army, that never-ending march of fallen gods from fallen worlds older than memory — but Lup and I, we came up with a new plan. We knew the Hunger needed the Light to persist — so we _hid_ that Light, splitting it in seven, to try and starve the Hunger out.”

He sighed. “And that’s how the refugees of my homeworld nearly destroyed yours with the Grand Relics.”

Though Barry had only confirmed his suspicions, Kravitz’s jaw still dropped. _I was right. And Taako still has no idea. I need to tell him —_

“We were enthralled, all of us, with the idea of finally stopping the Hunger,” Barry continued, drifting back from the barrier. “Not all of us in the same way — Lucretia had an idea that was different altogether, equally bad as it was — and when we descended from the sky to introduce the Relics, like demigods about to be undone by our hubris, we enthralled _your_ world with conflict and bloodshed. Because the Light of Creation, at least in the form of the Relics we made from it, is a _poison_ disguised as an antidote. It will always be… hungered for.”

He chuckled bitterly. “And here I am, confessing my family’s crimes to the one person in this universe who knows the cost of our actions better than _anyone_. Kravitz, on behalf of all of us — I’m so _sorry_ that you and your world bore the consequences of our mess. I’m sure your job was an awful lot simpler before we showed up —”

“It was,” Kravitz agreed, “but maybe not for the reason you think. You know, before the Relic Wars, souls almost always retired to the Astral Plane without resistance… but victims of the _Relics_ never rested quietly. I’m no stranger to ghosts with unfinished business, of course, but so _many_ of them were still enthralled, as you put it — and before the wars dwindled out, there were _constant_ rebellions and escape attempts that plunged the Astral Plane into chaos.” He paused. “Speaking of which. I always wondered _why_ the Relic Wars ended when they did.”

“Good question.” Barry sighed. “Out of seven explorers, you know how many had the foresight to realize how dangerous the Grand Relics were? It was just one — Lucretia, the youngest, who knew before anyone else that we were about to poison this world. She had an alternate plan to defeat the Hunger, and though its side effects were just as unacceptable, she was in denial of those effects just like I was in denial about the Relics’ consequences. I — I hate talking about her like this, she’s _family_ to me just like the rest of them, but — she needed the Light in one piece for her plan, so not long after Lup went missing trying to bring an end to the Relic Wars, Lucretia went and — she fed our mission archives to the Voidfish. A being that consumes information, and makes it incomprehensible unless you’ve been specifically inoculated… or, unless you’re undead.”

“So your family, and the world, both forgot the Grand Relics,” Kravitz finished. “Except you and me.”

“Exactly. But Lucretia still needed to collect all seven, and… well, there were only seven _people_ in the world who could resist their thrall, and that was because they’d spent a century building up an immunity. And Fischer, that’s what Magnus named the Voidfish, eventually had a kid — or so I assume, because I don’t know where _else_ Lucretia would get a baby alien jellyfish whose home plane was destroyed. Point is, Luce fed the baby certain things she needed kept secret, then inoculated Magnus, Merle, and Taako from the parent, so she could set them up as Reclaimers in her Bureau of Balance —”

“Wait, you mean that — that _Lucretia_ from my list of bounties, and the _Director_ I keep hearing about from Taako, are the _same_ person?!”

“Yeah.” Barry nodded. “Do you know if Davenport’s also with the Bureau, by any chance? I haven’t seen him in — in a really long time.”

“If I’d known where he was, I would’ve arrested him for dying eleven times,” Kravitz replied without thinking, regretting it instantly when Barry glowered at him. “I mean, I would have _before_ having this conversation, but not _now!_ I swear!”

“You’re not bound to your oath while you’re cut off from your goddess,” Barry pointed out. “And I dunno why I just _told_ you that, though I guess you seem like the kinda guy who’d stick to your word anyway —”

“Let’s backtrack to Lucretia,” Kravitz cut in. “What was her plan to stop the Hunger? _Why_ was it so unacceptable, and… and why does she need the Light?”

Barry looked away, answering in a slowly fading voice.“She wanted to starve the Hunger out too, just like Lup and I were thinking. But she wanted to use the Light to create a shield around this planar system — and I know that sounds great in practice, but any barrier strong enough to keep out the Hunger would sever all this world’s extraplanar bonds. It _would_ keep the Hunger out, but everything inside would be reduced to ash, and Lucretia… never wanted to believe that. I have to assume she _still_ doesn’t believe it, and will go ahead with her shield as soon as she reclaims the last two Relics. The Temporal Chalice, and the Animus Bell.”

“Well, _shit_ ,” Kravitz muttered, earning a grunt of agreement from Barry. “So our options — our _only_ three options are being turned to ash, fighting a losing battle with an eldritch abomination, and continuing to let the Relics tear this world apart?”

“It’s… a little too late for that last one, actually.” Barry shook his head. “The Hunger’s got a lock on our planar system now — Noelle told me she saw stars disappearing, and that means we’re down to a matter of months.”

“Oh gods, _that’s_ why there’s fewer stars? I thought I was going crazy!” Kravitz gasped, turning to Noelle. “Barry told _you_ all this as well?”

Noelle bobbed up and down slightly, presumably to indicate a nod. “He filled me in on the highlights. Then a bit more detail ‘bout the Hunger, when I asked him just a couple hours ago if he knew why the constellations looked _off_.”

“I can’t believe this,” Kravitz sighed. “I should’ve just asked you to explain yourself _years_ ago! You could’ve cleared up so much —”

“ _I_ should’ve tried to tell you more,” Barry admitted, “but the truth sounds so insane that I didn’t think you’d _believe_ the whole unfiltered thing. Hell, I’m amazed you believe me right _now_ —”

“Uh, actually, about that…” Kravitz smiled sheepishly, instinctively crossing his arms behind his back to hide his soon-to-be-implicated spellcasting hands. “I appreciate you leaving me _some_ magic when you cut me off from the Raven Queen, but in the interest of… honesty _,_ you should know that before I joined the Queen’s retinue, I was a bard. My powers are limited right now, since I don’t have an instrument on me, and even with one I wouldn’t have expected this to _work_ — but a couple minutes ago, I cast Zone of Truth on you.” He shrugged. “Being a last-ditch effort as it was, I kind of assumed you’d _notice_ it —”

Barry threw his head back with a guffaw of laughter, and his hood fell to his shoulders, unveiling a mass of dark smoke that resembled a mullet. “Oh, Merle would be so proud!”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Noelle wisecracked, and then _all_ of them were laughing at poor Merle’s expense, just like three old friends who’d never, _ever_ tried to kill or imprison or backstab each other.

“Yes, it is a compliment,” Barry chuckled, “but don’t you _dare_ tell him I got got by a Zone of Truth, or I’ll _never_ hear the end of it!”

“I, uh, I’ve got one more backstory question, if you don’t mind,” Kravitz began as his laughter died down, and Barry’s attention immediately returned to him. The lich was easier to read with his cowl down, revealing cues like the quizzical, attentive tilt of his head. 

“Yeah? Shoot.”

“I saved this one for last because I’m asking in… well, mostly my own self-interest…” Kravitz took a breath. “But does Taako have any, um, still-relevant love interests he lost his memories of?”

“Oh my gods, _Kravitz_ …”

“I like him a _lot_ , even though it’s still early — but I’d feel awful replacing a partner he was ripped away from, especially under these circumstances —”

“A truce with the Grim Reaper is one thing!” Barry shouted to no one in particular. “But being the Grim Reaper’s brother-in-law? Being Taako’s best man when he and the Grim Reaper get married?!”

Kravitz beamed. “Okay, I’ll take that as a no!”

Still chuckling, Barry silently snapped his fingers. A dozen runes flashed before going dark forever, and a moment later, the opalescent barrier faded away. 

“I tell you what, bud,” he said. “You help me save all of reality, and I won’t even give you the shovel talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, comments/[reblogs](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/639517654064971776/fear-the-reaper-a-lot-actually-chapter-8) welcomed as always! this is my favorite chapter thus far, not to mention a good 70 percent of the reason I decided to write this fic in the first place, and I hope you all enjoyed it too!


	9. Skeleton Dog Rave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry gets a job offer. Kravitz sees a new side of the moon. Taako has a long-overdue chat with his umbrella.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lately, I’ve been thinking of this fic as a story told in two acts. They’re not necessarily going to be equal in length, but this chapter is definitely the end of Act One.

“That’s basically the whole story, Your Majesty,” Kravitz concluded, after several minutes of talking at speeds that no being who needed to breathe could hope to match. Barry and Noelle stood on either side of him, mustering the most innocent expressions he’d ever seen on the faces of a lich or a robot, respectively. “Not that I’d blame you for having follow-up questions, because… well, holy shit.” 

**Holy shit, indeed,** the Raven Queen agreed. A projected image of her visage was floating above a circle of five perfect raven feathers, having been carefully arranged on the cave floor by Kravitz. **Istus _said_ we were approaching unprecedented times, but… **

She sighed. **Well, I must admit that with the apparent exception of Istus, we gods hardly think about what lies outside our planar system. It’s… inconvenient, _uncomfortable,_ how we hold so much power in this world yet understand so little about what’s beyond it. This threat, this Hunger, is news even to me — but didn’t you already know that, Barry, from all the Celestial Planes you’ve seen invaded before?**

Barry nodded. “Yeah. _I_ never saw stuff like that directly, of course, but Merle’s a cleric, so… he had his ways of knowing it was never a pretty picture.”

The Raven Queen let out a sigh, like wind escaping from beneath a whole flock’s wings. **Then I have more important things to do than reconcile your undeath with the laws of this world, and you have more important things to do than defend yourself to me. Barry, Noelle, you are free to go at _least_ until the apocalypse is averted — but if we get through that, and only then, I’d like you to start thinking about accepting jobs in the Astral Plane. Whatever state the world is in after the Hunger arrives, Kravitz and I will probably need your help.**

Barry went dead silent, while Noelle’s whole display lit up with excitement. 

“Are we talking afterlife office jobs,” she asked, “or something more along the lines of what Kravitz does?”

“We’ve got plenty of open positions, honestly,” Kravitz explained. “You could probably pick either.”

“Huh,” Barry finally muttered, so soft that Kravitz could’ve missed it. “I — I appreciate the offer, but — I gotta know one thing before I even _consider_ it. Will I have to — to bring in any of my family? Anyone from the Starblaster?”

**I’d like to speak with them all eventually, and I may ask you to facilitate that,** the Raven Queen replied, **but they won’t be punished.**

Barry nodded. “Okay. That’s… that’s something I’m willing to consider, then.”

**I hope you find out what happened to Lup. Her location is concealed from even me, but I _know_ she’s never entered my domain, so I believe you’ll find her out there somewhere.**

Barry’s eyes flickered, shedding drops of light that ran down his face for a few seconds before they coalesced back together. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

**It’s the least I could do. From here, my priority shall be to warn the rest of the pantheon, but we’ll be in touch.** The Raven Queen’s visage disappeared with a clap of thunder and a gust of wind that lifted the feathers into the air, carrying them back to Kravitz’s waiting hands as her voice boomed throughout the cave one last time. **Good luck, my children.**

“That went well, right?” Noelle asked when the echoes faded. “That felt _pretty_ good for a conversation with the death goddess.”

“She’s a lot more reasonable than most gods, I think you’ll find,” Kravitz concurred. “But what’s the plan now? Because other than heading up to the moon, and bringing the boys back down for you to tell them what little you can, I haven’t got a lot of ideas.”

“I dunno either. I don’t like keeping them in the dark either, but it’s _very_ little we can tell them aside from —” Barry paused. “Wait. You can go on the moonbase?”

“Yes? At least, no one’s tried to _stop_ me. I guess I can see why _you_ wouldn’t be allowed up there, but —”

“It’s more than a ban and a wanted poster keeping me off! It’s an anti-undeath _ward_ —” Electricity crackled inside Barry’s silhouette, and he let out a laugh that could’ve woken the not-yet-reanimated dead. “But _you,_ Kravitz, apparently possess enough celestial energy to balance out the undead elements of your soul — which is _perfect!_ It changes everything!”

“Uh,” Kravitz began, reflexively taking a step back, “I think I’m missing some context here —”

“That ward’s the only thing stopping Barry from sneaking onto the moonbase and stealing the ichor he needs to inoculate his family!” Noelle explained, totally unperturbed by Barry’s mad scientist laugh. “I couldn’t steal it for him because the same ward keeps me from leaving my fuse for very long, and this robot body’s not exactly stealthy — but _you_ can decorporealize for as long as you want on the moon, right?”

“I’m not sure I’ve actually _tried_ ,” Kravitz replied, rubbing his chin as the puzzle pieces fell into place, “but I’ve never had issues getting through anti-undead wards _before,_ corporeally or otherwise!”

Barry rubbed his hands together, smoke and sparks pouring out from between them — but for the first time, Kravitz was sure he saw a glint of a _smile_ flash on Barry’s face.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Barry asked. “Let’s head back to my place and plan a heist!”

***

“So what do we do now, Fantasy Columbo?” Taako asked, staring at the Umbra Staff in his hands. “I didn’t hear any jingles start playing for solving some sick higher power’s umbrella lich puzzle — how does this _help_ us? What does it change?”

This _should_ have been a revelation, Taako knew. This should have changed _everything_. But his mind was lagging behind his racing heart, struggling to fit together puzzle pieces that he _knew_ should connect. Struggling to understand why he cared so _fiercely_ about an evil ghost of an evil wizard being trapped in the arcane focus he’d looted her corpse for.

“I… I guess we should try to communicate with her?” Angus suggested. “She’s a Red Robe, so she must have _something_ to do with —” He gestured wildly from his notepad, to Taako’s head, to the incinerated coffee table. “With all of _this_. Right?”

He removed his glasses, wiping off drops of sweat, and Taako realized that Angus, the smartest person he knew, had ran into an uncomfortable mental wall of his own — and after just a split second of looking at Angus’s pained expression, Taako made a decision.

“Hey, kid. I need your arguably expert opinion real quick — Magnus and Merle aren’t smart enough to be memory-wiping masterminds, right?”

“Oh, absolutely not, sir. We both know they’re no good at keeping their lies straight.”

“Could you check in on them for me? And try to bring ‘em back here — but, uh, only if you can do it without Lucretia or Davenport spotting you, and I need you to _really_ focus on looking out for them. I don’t know who else I can trust with this —”

With a huge, determined smile on his face, Angus saluted. “I won’t let you down, sir!” He looked far less pained as he slunk out of the room, and Taako breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Okay. Kid’s gonna be alright with his mind off of this, and now we can have some peace and quiet, Lup.” His mouth lingered on the name _Lup_ but his mind didn’t, giving no thought to the affection he instinctively voiced. “So… let’s chat?”

***

Lucretia’s office looked just as Barry had described, and not all that different from the Reclaimer’s dorms in terms of architecture. The sole occupant was not the Director herself, but a mustached gnome man who sat at the oversized desk, focusing intently on a game of solitaire. He didn’t even look up as Kravitz’ soul drifted past, steering clear of the desk and floating right through a heavy, closed door.

Kravitz kept inside the left wall of the corridor — Barry may not have reported any traps in this stretch, but the puzzle that Barry _had_ reported was nowhere to be seen, and Kravitz knew a suspiciously empty-looking hallway when he saw one. He phased through a second door at the end of the chamber, ignoring the computer that looked even more foreign to him than his Stone of Farspeech, and recorporealized inside a second office.

This close to the source of the ward, a spinning disk imbued with radiant energy, Kravitz could finally feel its influence — a faint burn and refreshing cold that coexisted, an antipathy towards his undead body and a resonance with the Raven Queen’s blessing. Tempted as he was to knock down the disk and short-circuit the ward, it wasn’t poised do much besides mildly distract him, and he was making this visit with a much different goal — one that he’d expose, if he ended up dramatically trashing someone else’s holy symbol.

At the far end of the office sat a murky tank, and above that tank, an alarm was ringing. A few feet to the alarm’s left, a needle punched holes in a steadily scrolling paper, recording what Kravitz inferred to be times and intensities — and there was a _lot_ of information to infer from, because the paper output had not just reached the floor, but piled up to almost waist height. 

A _massive_ volume of alarms had clearly been accumulating, and someone — presumably Lucretia — was far too busy to check on every message. Ever since he’d died, Kravitz had been notoriously bad at keeping track of dates, but a quick comparison with the dates at the bottom of the pile and the dates of the current output revealed that the alarms had started trickling in last night, before a massive influx took shape only about an hour ago.

This was all very interesting to the part of Kravitz that loved a good mystery, but his pragmatic side won out, knowing this alarm could attract unwelcome attention at any moment. He switched his attention to the contents of the tank — which appeared just like Barry had said it would, but was still plenty fascinating. A jellyfish floated in murky ichor, illuminated from within by a dark purple nebula pattern, and recoiling away from Kravitz as he rested a hand atop the tank.

“Now, now. It’s alright,” Kravitz murmured, in the same tone he might use to calm a distressed soul. “No need to be scared…”

The baby Voidfish hummed two chords, far lower and louder than Kravitz had expected from such a tiny creature — but music, at least, was something Kravitz knew he could work with. He summoned his scythe in the form of a lute, plucking out a peaceful melody he’d been fond of for hundreds of years… and only a few bars in, the Voidfish began to echo him, humming along with increasing volume.

“I’m just here to do my friends a favor,” Kravitz promised. “It won’t take long at all.”

The Voidfish seemed to relax, so Kravitz let go of his lute, allowing it to float at his side with a faint blue aura suspending it in air. He pulled a canteen from beneath his cloak, slowly submerging it in the tank until it was full to the brim with ichor — probably a slight excess, but he’d rather have too much than not enough.

“See? All done,” he whispered, reattaching the canteen’s cap. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

The Voidfish hummed the refrain of his song once more as he reformed his scythe, and as if to say farewell, waved a tentacle in his direction as he stepped through the portal off the moonbase.

Just a moment later, the very second Kravitz’s feet hit solid subterranean ground, Barry was at his side with a barrage of questions. “How did it go? Have you got the ichor? Did anyone _see_ you?”

“Good, yes, and no in that order,” Kravitz replied, handing Barry the canteen. “The only thing I’m worried about is… well, you’ve seen how Lucretia has an alarm system in her office, right? It’s going a little haywire right now — and has been since last night.”

Barry’s relief morphed into frustration mid-relieved sigh. “I was hoping we could avoid that, since the boys haven’t had a run-in with me in a couple days — but I guess _someone’s_ still trying to remember _something,_ and it won’t be long ‘til Lucretia picks up on it. We gotta get a move on.”

“I did talk to Taako about the stars disappearing last night, come to think of it,” Kravitz recalled. “I _hope_ he’s not still hung up on that, but it sounds like he might be.”

“Shoot, that coulda done it. No fault of your own, obviously.” Barry sighed again, picking up a couple of scrolls from his desk and placing them on a much more neatly organized bookshelf. “Sorry for the mess, by the way. You and Noelle have been my only visitors so far this whole decade.”

Kravitz had seen Barry’s home before he left for his heist on the moon, and it had already been pretty respectable as secret lairs went. Aside from the stalactites and the dubiously legal cloning pod, it had looked more like a disheveled academic’s study than a necromancer’s dungeon — but in Kravitz’s absence, Barry had apparently gotten up to some spring cleaning. He’d draped a sheet over the pod, which was still glowing bright green and far from innocuous, and _somehow_ gotten his hands on a decent-quality couch, either from a pocket dimension or a conjuration spell or gods knew what else.

“Before you got involved, my plan never involved the boys coming in here while they could _remember_ me,” Barry admitted. “They’d still be far from seeing me at my _worst,_ but — well, I dunno if I can make this place look welcoming, exactly, but I’d rather not make them _worry_ about me ‘cause of it.”

“If it helps, this is easily the nicest cave I’ve ever seen a lich holed up in,” Kravitz said, which got a quiet laugh out of Barry.

“Yeah, I bet it is.” He opened the canteen, pouring a modest sample of the ichor into a glass vial. “Hard to believe this is _happening_ so suddenly, but… I think now’s the time. Lucretia could catch on at any minute, and I — I’ll be ready by the time you get back, I think.”

“Good luck remodeling,” Kravitz told him with a nod, and tore open a portal back to the moon.

***

“So… let’s chat?” Taako suggested. He didn’t know what kind of reply he was expecting, but he had to admit it stung when the Umbra Staff didn’t move an inch.

“Okay, what you do isn’t exactly _chatting_. That one’s on me. Can you just give me a sign, a little poltergeisting or something, if you’re listening?”

Still nothing, which continued to hurt more than it should have.

“Are you mad at me? I _thought_ you smacked me in the face today to get my attention! ‘Cause you _wanted_ to talk, but…” He glanced away from the umbrella in his lap. “I guess you really hate Kravitz, don’t you? And _I_ was helping him hunt you, even before we started dating…”

He sighed. “And you’re only here because I stole from your grave! What was I even _thinking?_ Of _course_ you hate me, and maybe I half-deserve it —”

The Umbra Staff twitched in his hands, subtly yet so abruptly that he jumped to his feet with a yelp and dropped it onto the floor. It spun over ninety degrees as it fell, landing to point at the shelf of seldom-used spell components that Taako and Merle shared.

“You… want me to cast something?” Taako knelt on the rug, gently wrapping a hand around the handle but not raising the umbrella from the floor. He didn’t feel even the slightest movement. “Hey, if you’re _not_ mad at me, then… do something. Do anything.” 

He thought the handle _might’ve_ trembled slightly, but wasn’t sure — it could’ve just been wishful thinking. “Okay, flip side. Do something if you are mad at me.”

This time, he was certain there was no response. “Okay, I’ve narrowed it down to either ‘you’re not mad’ or ‘you don’t want to talk to me,’ but I don’t get why you’re being so _subtle_ about this. I mean, I’m not asking you to cast Sunbeam on my boyfriend again, but I _know_ you could be giving me more obvious signs than —”

He happened to glace back at the component shelf, noticing the chest of spare wands he’d stockpiled — arcane foci, just like the ones the Umbra Staff consumed — then just like that, it clicked, and there was finally _one_ quirk of his rogue umbrella that Taako had an inkling of an explanation for.

“Unless… you _can’t_ give me a bigger sign because I haven’t beaten a magic user in a while!” he gasped. “You’re not _trying_ to ignore me — you’re running out of power!”

He unlatched the little chest, grabbing two cheap wooden wands and snapping them both — and sure enough, the Umbra Staff inverted with more vigor than Taako had seen from it all day, swallowing them whole.

“Better?” Taako asked, and a tiny pink flame sparked to life at the tip of the umbrella. Lup must’ve summoned it with a variant of Prestidigitation, because it smelled less like smoke and more like comforting home cooking. 

“Now I know why you chose me instead of Merle at the cave! You’re an adoring fan of Sizzle it Up!” Taako teased, and the Umbra Staff bonked him on the head. “Okay, fine, maybe not. Gods know that’s not the only thing I’ve got going for me over Merle.”

He glanced around the room, rubbing his chin. “I was _going_ to say you could turn that flame on and off real fast, send me a message in Fantasy Morse Code, but then I remembered I don’t actually know Fantasy Morse that well. Maybe you could, like, burn something into the wall —”

The flame atop the Umbra Staff intensified, excited.

“But I guess we’d run out of space real fast — never mind explaining it to Lucretia, yikes! We’d be toast… just like the walls.”

The flame died down, replaced with a disembodied, glowing red Mage Hand. With an upturned palm, it made a motion that Taako guessed was meant to convey a shrug and a _then what?_

“Oh, you didn’t _tell_ me you could do Mage Hand from in there too! I can work with that!”

He made a beeline for the dorm kitchen, ripping open a fresh bag of flour and dumping it directly onto the counter. “I _really_ don’t wanna leave written evidence, so you write stuff in this, and I’ll erase it when you’re done. Sound good?”

Lup squeezed his shoulder, then traced four words in the flour.

_I’ve never hated you_

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Taako muttered, pretending he couldn’t feel his whole chest seizing up. With a bare hand, he wiped the flour flat, and only sent a _little_ flying onto the floor accidentally. “I… I wanna let you out. Because this is a really inconvenient way to talk, but — but also ‘cause I know you didn’t mean to get trapped in there, and living inside your arcane focus sounds like it’s _the pits_. Is there a way I can free you?”

_yes but not right now_

“Why not?”

_no liches on the moon_

“Oh, have they got wards to block you off or something? I guess we wouldn’t be able to talk at _all_ if I freed you, and that… that wouldn’t be great.”

_I’d miss you :(_

“Yeah, I can imagine,” Taako replied, and he said it before he meant it. The figure of speech slipped out right away, ingrained after years of overwhelmingly insincere conversations, but his emotions caught up to him more slowly — starting with the loneliness and the longing, before they ate away at him and left an emptiness behind, a dread of never being whole again and a temptation to tear the whole world apart, because _what would he have left to lose?_

It ended with a throbbing skull, with static clouding the peripheries of his vision, with a mind that couldn’t fathom why _missing someone_ would hit so close to a home that should have never existed. The last year notwithstanding, he couldn’t remember a time where he’d be caught _dead_ missing someone’s company… but now all he could think, all he could feel, was _I’m not losing you ~~again~~._

“There’s gotta be a workaround — right, Lup?” he managed. “Like, is there a way I could take the wards down?”

_maybe, but_

_Lucretia would notice_

“I’m gonna go out on a limb, and assume… she wouldn’t be too thrilled to know you’re here.”

Lup took longer to reply than usual, erasing the first few letters of her response to start over several times.

_it’s so complicated_

_don’t think I can explain_

“Right. Of course. ‘Cause of the Voidfish.” Taako rubbed his cheek, expecting to wipe away stray splotches of flour — but instead, he felt his fingers grow damp with tears that he _knew_ weren’t just from the pain of his headache.

“I — I don’t know what to _do_ , Lup. I want to help you, but Kravitz is probably in danger because of me so I have to make sure he’s okay, and I know _he_ won’t like me helping you — then there’s Angus and Magnus and Merle, too, I have no _clue_ if any of them are in as much trouble as us. And I just… I can’t shake the feeling that there’s _more_ to this. That the worst of all the bombshells still hasn’t dropped, and I’m about to _lose_ all you while I still don’t know who I am, or who I can trust besides —”

The fingers of Lup’s Mage Hand interlocked with his, and it was a strange sensation — fuzzy and only about half-tangible, as simple magic constructs were expected to be, but warm like a living hand despite the lack of flesh and blood. Taako couldn’t say how long he was silent, just focusing on just that warmth and the inexplicable nostalgia that accompanied it, before he finally asked: “What do _you_ think I should do?”

Lup withdrew her hand slowly, but didn’t hesitate nor erase as she traced four new words:

_find Barry_

_trust Barry_

“…I’m glad I’ve got you, Lup, ‘cause I _never_ woulda come up with that on my own,” Taako muttered, chuckling in spite of himself. He didn’t doubt for a second that Lup’s advice was worth following, but he had to admit it was ridiculous how every time a problem came up in his life, _someone_ insisted it could be solved by tracking down a denim-clad lich. “Do you know any of his favorite hangouts, or —”

As Lup’s Mage Hand zipped back into the Umbra Staff, Taako didn’t quite notice the scythe rending space behind him, but he whirled around at the sound of feet hitting the ground and an incredulous voice speaking up.

“Uh, Taako?”

Kravitz carried himself with considerably less poise than usual, wearing a tattered suit that had presumably once seen better days, but he appeared otherwise unscathed, and Taako’s heart jumped for joy.

“I — I — I’m sorry?” Kravitz’s words sounded less like an apology, and more like a sincere question of whether or not he _should_ be sorry for intruding. “I should’ve just portalled to the hallway and knocked. I didn’t mean to walk in on — on _whatever_ this is —”

Before he could stammer another adorably confused word, Taako rushed in for a hug — never mind how crazy he knew he looked, covered in flour and inexplicably teary-eyed over an umbrella. 

“Holy shit, I can’t believe — I was so _worried_ about you. I thought for _sure_ you were in trouble and it was all my fault — it was all because —”

Kravitz slipped a cool, but unusually not _cold_ hand under Taako’s hat, mussing up his hair to match the rest of his appearance. “I won’t lie, Taako — there were moments today where _I_ was worried for me. But it turned out to all be a misunderstanding, which is always a pleasant surprise in my line of work — and even better, if you can believe it, one of my new friends knows what’s up with those deaths you can’t remember!”

Kravitz was beaming, but Taako’s blood ran cold like _he_ was the dead man walking. Just when he’d been so sure, so _relieved_ , that he hadn’t dragged Kravitz into the Voidfish conspiracy after all, it turned out that Kravitz had sleuthed his way right to its very center. 

_No wonder he gets along so well with Angus,_ Taako thought wryly. _Two constantly endangered nerds of a feather._

“This _friend_ can explain it much better than I can, so we’ll visit him by portal — but Magnus and Merle need to hear the truth, too,” Kravitz went on, still seeing no reason not to be enthusiastic. “Are they available?”

“Oh, those clowns? They’re off playing kickball with Angus or something — should be back soon.” Taako knew how Kravitz thought, and knew that Kravitz _believed_ he was doing the right thing by digging up these secrets. He was fulfilling an oath to his goddess _and_ helping Taako get some closure, which should have been great news as far as Kravitz knew — but now he was on the moon, speaking openly about truths a Voidfish had suppressed… 

And Taako was conspiring with a lich, soon to be _two_ liches, behind Kravitz’s back. He wasn’t expecting to _like_ the truth behind his eight deaths, if he could even wrap his mind around it — and he had a feeling that when it came time to be judged by the Raven Queen, Kravitz would like the truth and its consequences even less, regardless of whether Taako could think clearly enough to defend himself.

So he withdrew from the hug, wiping the flour — and the incriminating mention of Barry — off the counter with a swoop of his hand. “Oh, drat! Did _not_ mean to do that, ‘cause now I’ll have to mop the _whole floor_ —”

“Okay, Taako. What’s wrong?” Kravitz asked firmly — and Taako didn’t know _why_ he’d thought he’d be able to stall for time, given how Kravitz knew _him_ pretty well, too. “You’re not in trouble with the Queen — I mean, we’ll probably have to invent and then fill out an _entirely_ new form of paperwork about you and your pals, but I told her _everything_ and she’s not mad, I can say that much. Same goes for Magnus, Merle, and — uh, forgive me, just Magnus and Merle. It’s been a long day.”

“Okay, that’s the second piece of good bird news you’ve dropped on me in like twenty-four hours, and I appreciate that,” Taako sighed. “But — okay, listen. We’ve got to be quiet about this, for both of our safety, but I think — I _know_ I’m dealing with _more_ than just memory loss here. I’ll try jumping through your portal and talking to your friend, but I really don’t think I’ll be _able_ to understand —”

“Oh!” Kravitz gasped. “I think I know what you’re talking about — I ran into it with Angus earlier, and we should definitely have a way around it.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “My, uh, my new friend didn’t know if you could _understand_ that there was a second Voidfish — but you heard that, right? It wasn’t garbled?”

Taako nodded frantically. “Yeah, and we’ve gotta get off the moon. If Lucretia finds out we know, I — I’ve got no _idea_ how far she’ll go to keep this under wraps, and that’s the worst part. She’s already suspicious of me, and I —”

He felt a tug from his umbrella, and he cast _Message_ as quickly and subtly as he could, hoping the Umbra Staff’s propensity to absorb magic like a sinkhole would somehow pull his unspoken words to Lup.

_I’m not going to tell him about you. Not until I get more information._

Her reply must’ve hardly escaped from the umbrella, being little more than a distorted whisper — _Be careful. Love you_ — but Taako’s legs almost gave out beneath him when he heard her voice, and Kravitz winced.

“We’ve really got to get you out of here, don’t we?” he murmured, taking Taako’s hand — and Kravitz’s skin was _definitely_ warmer than usual, because _of course_ this frankly adorable development would happen when Taako had a million other things on his mind. “You said the other boys will be back soon?”

“I _hope_.” Taako led the way into the living room, giving a wide berth to the remains of the coffee table. “I sent Angus to go find —”

On cue, the rattle of a doorknob and the sound of Angus’s voice rang out from the hallway. “Sir? We’re back! Could you unlock the door?”

The next sound was the telltale _thump_ of a small child being affectionately shoved aside, followed by Magnus exclaiming: “Hey, I’ve got thieves’ tools now! Gimme a shot at picking it!”

Kravitz pursed his lips. “Don’t Magnus and Merle have their own keys?” he muttered under his breath.

“Of _course_ they do,” Taako sighed, and the door swung open with a snap of his fingers and a _Knock_ spell.

“Magnus, look!” Merle cheered. “You did it!”

While Magnus and Merle high-fived, Angus’s eyes lit up at the sight of Kravitz half-alive and well.

“You’re _okay!_ I’m sorry I didn’t end up finding Noelle, but Taako said he was worried about you, so I started worrying too — did you have a nasty fight with a necromancer or something?”

“…Yes and no,” Kravitz responded after a moment of hesitation, “but I can explain _that_ whole incident later. Right now, I need you all to come with me to —”

“A cool skeleton rave!” Taako butted in. “And… there’s also supposed to be skeleton dogs there! So you guys will _definitely_ wanna get in on it!”

“Yes, exactly!” Kravitz corroborated without missing a beat. “It’s one of those, you know, _very_ rare skeleton raves that receives the Raven Queen’s approval. Once in a century opportunity, so you won’t want to miss it!”

Magnus rubbed his chin. “I dunno about this. How do you _pet_ a skeleton dog?”

“Only one way to find out!” Taako told him, then breathed a sigh of relief when it got an approving nod from Magnus.

“Fair enough! I’m sold!”

Angus narrowed his eyes, so Taako grinned and winked, hoping it came across as equal parts conspiratorial and _don’t you dare blow this for me_. It must’ve worked, because after a few seconds of surely intense mental calculations, Angus plastered on a convincing innocent smile and gave Taako a thumbs-up.

“Thanks for inviting me on this fun diversion, sir! I’m _sure_ you could’ve come up with a more convincing lie if it was a trap or a prank, so I’m all in!”

Smiling awkwardly, Kravitz turned to the the lie’s final mark. “Merle, my bud, how about you?”

“Are we buds now?” Merle grinned. “You know what, sure! Anything for my bud!”

“Then away we go!” Kravitz tore open a rift and immediately stepped through, beckoning for the others to follow with the single arm that remained on their side of the portal. Magnus leapt through almost immediately, Merle hot on his heels, while Angus approached the rift more skeptically.

“Well, sir,” he announced softly once Magnus and Merle disappeared, “you and Kravitz owe me an explanation… but I trust the both of you.” He took Taako’s hand, and the two of them stepped through the portal together, emerging in a cold, dimly lit cave. 

And Taako thought he’d been “moving fast” through a lot of things, lately — through worldview-shattering realizations, into a romantic relationship, into unofficially and semi-accidentally adopting a boy detective — but nothing could’ve prepared him for how fast _everything_ moved in the next minute.

Kravitz faced Noelle and a now-familiar disembodied robe, very obviously struggling to suppress a mood-inappropriate laugh. “Can you _believe_ I was planning to lie to Magnus about skeleton dogs, but then Taako interrupted and independently came up with the same fib?”

“That’s love, baby!” Taako exclaimed, in the moment before the absurdity of the situation dawned on him. “Wait. Why’s Barold here?”

As the rift fizzled and disappeared, Magnus drew Railsplitter, only to whirl around on himself with no idea who to aim at or threaten. “Hey, did we just get kidnapped? ‘Cause I’ve gotta say, this is the _last_ combination of people in the world I expected to team up and kidnap us.”

“It’s not a kidnapping,” Kravitz began, “it’s just —”

“Did you kidnap a _child_ , Kravitz?” Barry interrupted, gesturing at Angus. “When was that _ever_ a part of the plan?! We didn’t need to involve —”

“With all due respect, Mister Bluejeans,” Angus butted in, “Kravitz didn’t _technically_ kidnap me! I knew perfectly well that he was bullshitting, but I decided to come along with him anyway, out of my own free will!” He turned to face Kravitz, adjusting his glasses. “That said, he _did_ deceive and therefore truly kidnap Magnus, Merle, and maybe even Taako by the sound of things — so if he could go ahead and explain his _presumably_ very good reason for doing so, that would be just dandy!”

Barry sighed. “Real smartass kid you’ve dragged into the fate of the universe, huh, boys?”

“He was already involved enough in things that he _deserves_ to know. We’re bringing him up to speed too,” Kravitz declared, and Barry shrugged.

“Alright, _sure_ — but why the _hell_ was there a child on the moon in the first place?!”

“He’s the world’s greatest detective,” Noelle spoke up, and Angus beamed. “I told you about him, remember? He’s the one who figured out that you were amnesiac when you were alive —”

“Oh, I _do_ remember that, though I don’t remember you mentioning his age — so I guess it’s my bad, then, for assuming a secret lunar society would give a flying _fuck_ about child labor laws!”

Kravitz ignored them both. “Merle, Magnus — I’m so sorry for the deception, and Taako, I’m sorry for not saying that Barry was my new contact. I didn’t want anyone eavesdropping on us on the moonbase, and I _swear,_ I will explain myself as _soon_ as I physically can —”

“Hey, hey, it’s cool!” Taako’s words were intended not just for Kravitz, but for Lup within the Umbra Staff, which had started trembling at the sound of Barry’s voice. “I _would_ love an explanation, but I needed Barold’s help anyway, sooo… doesn’t this work out pretty great?”

“Needing Barry’s help is a new one, sir,” Angus commented, but no one in the room looked more incredulous than Kravitz and Barry themselves, who both froze in place. 

“Um, that’s — that’s news to me too?” Barry stammered. “But if — if you don’t _need_ any convincing, then…” 

He floated a little taller, robe a little less ragged, voice a little more hopeful. “Let’s get you inoculated, bud.”

A glass vial appeared in Taako’s hand, and he sipped the dark liquid inside without a second thought, even though he gagged while passing the vial on to an apprehensive Magnus. No memories rushed back to him like he’d braced himself for, but he thought he felt the nature of his headache change — less like the roar of static, and more like the pressure on a dam about to burst.

“You should really sit down for this,” Barry told him, resting a cold hand on Taako’s shoulder. “Take it as slow as possible. You obviously figured out a lot, more than I thought you would, but you still won’t be ready for —”

“ _Relax,_ it hasn’t even hit me yet!” Taako interrupted. “So in the meantime, I can catch you up on this whole funny story about… my… _umbrella_ …”

The metaphorical floodgates shattered, and the deluge of memories swept him off his feet. 

_Growing up bouncing between relative to relative, growing skilled as chefs and wizards on the road. The IPRE entrance exams, the best day ever, the Hanging Arcaneum, “back soon” —_

His head burned as the static was expunged from his mind, displaced by visions of days and months and _cycles_ that just kept _hitting_ him. He was dimly aware of someone, _two_ someones, clutching his arms and lowering him to his knees on the cool cave floor — 

“Stay with us, Taako!” Kravitz pleaded, holding Taako’s left hand. “Listen to Barry —”

“I’ll walk you through everything,” Barry — _the animal kingdom, learning to swim, “what if she’s just gone?”_ — promised from his right, clinging to the same arm with which Taako held the Umbra Staff. “Just _don’t_ think ahead. I’ve been through this before, and I can get you through it _now_ , as long as —”

“B-but — but _Lup_!” Taako cried. “ _How_ could I forget —”

“I _know_ , bud,” Barry whispered. “I forgot too. I _understand_ —”

“You fucking _don’t_ understand!” Tears fell from his eyes, but his mouth twisted into a cautious, still half-disbelieving smile. “Barry, she’s _right here!_ ”

“What?!” The cave was plunged into red and black, blinding lights and impenetrable shadows, as the lich at its center seemed to fall apart and come together all at once. “WHERE?!”

Taako closed his eyes, and with a strength he didn’t know he had, snapped the Umbra Staff over his knee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments/[reblogs](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/642330434128248832/fear-the-reaper-a-lot-actually-chapter-9) welcomed as always! This fic might go on an unofficial and temporary hiatus for a while, since I've got an unrelated and much shorter TAZ WIP that I really want to finish before the motivation for it leaves me — but rest assured, I've got plenty more ideas to explore in this AU (with dramatically different character dynamics going forward, of course), so you can expect several more chapters before things are finally tied up!


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